Kale, Alive Vates Grex  

Brassica oleracea (55 days) 

A Siskiyou Seeds Farm original variety that is the result of allowing 6 different strains of Scotch curled, Vates types of kale interbreed, including Winterbor (F1), Starbor(F1), Easy Pick (F1), Darkibor (F1), Dwarf Blue, Scotch curled, Meadowlark, Nash's Green.  We began with a large population of a few thousand plants and then selected the hardiest survivors that made it through a week-long cold snap down to 5° F with no snow or mulch.  What made it not only survived, but thrived, growing succulent, sweet green leaves starting with the warming days of February and jamming right along until finally flowering in late May, at which point we harvest tasty flower shoots for use in stir fry or raw in salad.  Frilly blue green leaves are held high off the ground to keep winter splashback of mud off them.  This is an interbreeding population so expect some variability…perfect for homestead gardeners who look to their kale patch to feed them year round!

We have done an intensive Half-sibling breeding program with this variety wherein we saved seed from our favorite 100 plants out of a larger population of 2,000 plants, then grew 50 plants from each of those 100 mothers and then rogued out the less desirable plants leaving the best 30W% of a larger grow out of 5,000 plants.  So this is becoming a true open-pollinated work-horse kale that is an alternative to modern hybrids. Siskiyou Select Original

 Packet (1/2 g ≈ 125 seeds)

1/2 ounce - ( ≈ 4,000 seeds)

1 oz (≈ 8,000 seeds)

1/4 lb (≈ 32,000 seeds)