Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been trying to grow kale in my grow bed for the past six weeks but with no success. I dropped the seeds in, and the sprouted with no trouble, but they can't seem to develop into actual edible plants. Nitrogen, micro nutrients, sunlight, water, pH, temperature, etc., all seem to be fine because just about everything else in the grow bed is exploding with growth and is highly productive. Take a look at the pictures, and let me know what you think is happening here.

But on the bright side, if it doesn't grow, you don't need to eat it!

I can't say I've really met anybody who actually likes it, more who think they should eat it because it's good for them.

I put a plant into my DWC for the fun of it, and it's a very slow grower in there also.

What kind of kale is that? It doesn't look like any I've seen.
Mine was just given a haircut. My wife gave away about a bushel yesterday.

Hey Colum, go easy on the kale . I made creamed Tuscan Kale the other night adapting the River Cottage creamed spinach recipe, and my teenage son went back for seconds

Hey Squatch, you have Tuscan Kale too - mine self seeds in my dirt garden.

SickRadish, no idea why your kale is not flourishing - it does look a bit pale, so maybe you have an iron deficiency . Do you add chelated iron to your system? I add a spoonful every fortnight or so if new leaves are looking a bit anaemic, and a cap of liquid seaweed (seasol or maxicrop) every week or so for trace elements.

I know what you mean. It doesn't look like kale at all. It might have been baby kale, the kind that is used in salad greens. I don't see how this is supposed to mature into the kind we all know and love.

I ended up tearing out half of the sickly little things to make way for plants that I knew would do well. The cucumbers and melons that I planted yesterday have doubled in size from 1 to 2 inches overnight. It's not like the system isn't working. Weird, huh?

The system gets dosed once a week with maxicrop. Fish are providing the rest.

Have you noticed any cupping on other plants leaves? looks like there may be some tat soi type plant on the edge of the pic with cupping. That may indicate Ca defiency - Does your source water have much Ca?

There are also many different varieties of kale, wildly different looking types.

The plants on the right are basil. They all have a fairly convex shaped leaf. The basil is robust and prolific. I haven't noticed cupping recently, though I did see that some months ago before I started using maxicrop. We are on the San Jose municipal water supply, and the water is fairly hard. I'm guessing that means there's quite a bit of calcium in it, though I have not tested yet. I will try that, as well.

Kale always seems to be one of the first plants to show deficiencies, I grow the red russian kale. I'm going to say this looks like potassium deficiency to me along with maybe some chlorosis from lack of iron. It's hard to tell but it seems like the tips dying is mostly on the lower/older leaves which means it's a mobile nutrient which would point away from calcium. Again it's tough to tell but for the chlorosis if the older leaves are darker then it's probably iron deficiency because it's not a mobile nutrient. I see some pretty dark leaves in there, find out if they are new or old.

With what I see at this point I would spray with potassium bicarbonate and do a separate spray of chelated iron (assuming I figured which leaves were the older vs younger part right ).

Planting now!!
Very different leaves.

I visited the vegetable orphanage (Safeway) today, and saw that there are varieties of kale that resemble what I'm growing. Indeed, it is called baby kale, and looks nothing like the dark, curly Tuscan variety that I had hoped for.

I will give the folial spray a try this weekend. Thanks for the advice!

I noticed curling on the bottommost (oldest) leaves on many of my plants, so I hope that the foliar spray does the trick. I also discovered a fair amount of powder fungus on some of my snow peas leaves. I guess I'm gonna have to take some responsibility here and do some preventative spraying (bicarb) everywhere. The days of autopilot may be over. :-)

Ar!
Mr Radish Sir
Now and again you have to listen to, The Little people.
Sure you can feed kale to the animals. They love it!
Or you could shred it. Steam above some potatoes. Say a pan of potatoes to half a pan of Kale. Chop say a quarter pan of spring onions.
Mash the potatoes. Be generous with the butter and the cream!
Add the kale and the onions. Mix
Now the ,’little people ‘ love it
My grand children call it Green Mash.
Who says you cannot get kids to eat vegetables?
I believe adults call it, Colcannon.

Just a quick update. The kale has not responded to foliar spray, nor have the curling tomato plant leaves improved. I think I'll try kale when the temperature drops in the fall. In the meantime, I do need to figure out the nutrient problem with the older leaves curling up. It seems that one problem really just leads to another, and I will be doing a lot of experimentation and learning.

Just a quick update. The kale has not responded to foliar spray, nor have the curling tomato plant leaves improved. I think I'll try kale when the temperature drops in the fall. In the meantime, I do need to figure out the nutrient problem with the older leaves curling up. It seems that one problem really just leads to another, and I will be doing a lot of experimentation and learning.