Activity: How To Grow Your Own Kale At Home In Pots
This post will show you how to grow your own kale at home in pots – or outside in a vegetable patch if you have access to one. There’s nothing quite as delicious as home grown vegetables and kale is a very simple veg to get started with! It’s a versatile plant that will work really well for you, whether you have a windowsill, a porch or a large garden.
Here’s what you’ll need to grow your own kale at home in pots
- Kale seeds. I like the cavalo nero style of kale. You can buy seeds at most garden centres or super markets, with speciality and non GMO heirloom seeds available online too.
- 1 x little 10 cm pot to start the seeds in.
- 2 x larger pots to move them into when the seedlings grow bigger
- 1 cup of fertile soil from your composter, the garden or the shop
- Gardening gloves
- Small watering vessel
What to do next:
- Fill a 10cm pot with soil and pour a little water over it so that the soil is gently moist.
- Sow 2 to 3 of the little seeds, 2cm deep in the pot, equal distance apart. Lightly cover the seeds with a sprinkle of soil.
- Put the pot in the window or out on the porch, and water the seeds a little bit each day. They don’t like to be too dry or too soggy. You could use one of those little facial mist spritz bottles filled with water to keep them moist while they are sprouting.
- Before you know it, several little green sprout will appear! Congratualtions and happy birthday to your new friend!
- As your kale seedlings grow taller, continue to water and keep an eye on them.
- Assuming all of the seeds sprout, you will soon have three kale plants, reaching about 15cm in height. Transfer them to their own separate pots giving them room to grow. Plants are like handbags — or sheds; the bigger the pot the more the plant will find to fill it.
- If you have an outdoor space, you can then move the plants into a veg patch about 50cm between apart, as they can grow upwards of a metre tall
- Pick off the leaves as you go, adding them to your salads or steaming for your Sunday dinner. Some people like to pick the leaves once they reach 15 cm long, and others like to pick the leaves when they are still small, so that you get a kind of micro kale. Try not to pick all the leaves at once.
Hoorah! You can now grow your own kale leaves perfect for adding to salads, steaming, freezing or sharing with others. You can also substitute kale for rainbow chard, which is also easy to grow in the spring and summer months.
If you’d love to grow your own veg but are limited with space, there may be a scheme you can join locally where you can look after a different patch of land. Community allotments, neighbours gardens or helping to set up or tend a veg bed at your local school or retirement village can all be great ideas. Most places will be glad of your enthusiasm and happy to share the harvest with you.
If you love gardening, houseplants or flowers you might also enjoy my interview with leading author and forager Roger Phillips over on my mindfulness podcast Wellspring. You can listen HERE
