Cabbage, kale, and broccoli seed reviews

I do love me some brassicas.  I grow more varieties of them than any other plant family.  Some people like tomatoes…I’ll have fifteen or more kinds of kale, collards, broccoli, and such growing most years.

These are my notes on several varieties of brassicas I’ve grown recently – what grows well, what tastes great, what keeps well, etc. Obviously, it’s not an exhaustive list – feel free to add your own experience in the comments!  I’ve highlighted my current favorites in bold; I’ve quit growing things in gray due to poor performance.  The rest I grow occasionally, or even regularly, though they aren’t standouts for any particular reason. (Note: I garden in south-central Michigan, in zone 5, in a fairly open and cold microclimate.)

If you’re looking for great greens, check out Wild Garden Seed. Frank and Karen Morton are doing a lot of old-fashioned plant breeding on leafy greens.  All their varieties are open-pollinated (to my knowledge), so you get the best advantages of “new” varieties with the advantages and ethos of open-pollinated heirlooms. The Wild Garden Kale listed below is their work, sold through Bountiful Gardens.  I love that that variety was marketed as a diverse gene pool from which to select your own hyper-local variety!

Crop	Variety	Source	Germination	Notes
Kale	“Wild Garden” Flat-leaf type	Bountiful Gardens	Good for 2 years, then 50/50	Vigorous grower; handles cold well and overwinters reliably in hoop house. Very productive. Have seen 3 leaf colors/shapes so far. Good taste – a staple in my garden, unless seed proves unreliable after only 2 years. Saved seed last year – will see if its longevity is better than the packet I bought.
Kale	Improved Siberian Flat-leaf type	Territorial	Very strong	Haven’t grown to harvest yet, but this is the most vigorous sprouter I have this year. I have high hopes for this one.
Kale	Winterbor F1Curly type	? Johnny’s?	Good	Good curly type. Handles cold well. Same packet of seeds sprouted strongly for 9 years until I ran out.
Kale	Dwarf Vates F1 Curly type	NK	Good	Reliable but not a standout in any way.
Kale	Lacinato/Dino	Seeds of Change	Ok – not as good as other kales	Exceptional taste; preferred by husbands and cabbage loopers. Not as productive as leaf kales.
Broccoli	Purple Peacock	Bountiful Gardens	Ok first year, mediocre second year, dud third year	The most delicious and beautiful broccoli I’ve ever eaten. Less yield than most broccolis the first year, and leaves too small to amount to much. Almost no harvest 2nd year; no germination 3rd year. Too “fussy” for my garden?
Broccoli	Early Green	Seeds of Change	Good	My standard broccoli. Loose head, lots of side shoots. Heads taste great even when flowering.
Broccoli	Happy Rich F1	Johnny’s	Good	Earler and more prolific than Early Green; my main problem is harvesting it before it flowers. Still tasty in flower.
Broccoli	Di Cecco	Seeds of Change	Good	I don’t care for it – I like a looser head, and it’s fussy about harvest. Can rot on the stem if not harvested; flowering ruins it.
Cabbage	Winningstadt (early)	Johnny’s	Poor	Scanty germination the first year; none at all the second year.
Cabbage	January King (storage)	Johnny’s	Good	Cold weather champ. Gorgeous purple-green leaves all winter in greenhouse. I planted it late so got no heads last year, but loose leaves were tasty and hardy. Resprouted vigorously in the spring.
Collards	Georgia	Bountiful Gardens	Good	Good summer harvests and kept well into winter, even outside. Not as good as Wild Kale and January King in the spring after overwintering. Collards are less tender than kale.
Turnip	Purple top	Ferry Morse organic	Very good	Go-to table turnip.  Very easy to grow. Makes a crop of small roots and big leaves in a very short time – I always plant-a-row or two of these for the food bank. Cover with row cover for bug-free roots.
Turnip	Hakurei	Johnny’s	Good	Pretty amazing to eat raw – not good cooked or pickled. Mild and sweet. A new favorite.
Turnip	Golden Globe	Burpee	Good	Can’t eat out of hand like Hakurei but are decent turnips for cooking.
Kohlrabi	Superschmeltz	Turtle Tree	Poor	Have never raised one to harvest
Rutabaga	American Purple Top	Ferry Morse	Fair	Hard to germinate in the summer for fall harvest
Rutabaga	Bora	Bountiful Gardens	Fair	Hard to germinate in the summer for fall harvest
Mustard Greens	Mizuna	Seeds of Change	Very Good	Very vigorous, high yields. Bolts somewhat quickly, though the florets taste pretty good. Actually grows faster than we can eat it.
Mustard Greens	? Big, purple-veined leaves	Seeds of Change	Very Good	Very vigorous, high yields. More peppery than we like, though my heat-loving friends snapped it up. Easy to grow; grows more than we can eat.
Radish	Podding	Johnny’s	Very Good	Three plants made a hedge 4′ tall, 6′ wide, and 2′ deep. Thousands of pods; they taste like a snow pea with a snappy radish flavor.  Again, produced more than we could possibly eat from 3 plants.  Good raw; would like to try them stir-fried.