Growing them is new for me.
I assumed you harvested all summer long.
Everything online parrot's each other
With wait for the frost?
Advice please.

I want your knowledge and options.

The water rings are cut from five gallon buckets.

You can eat them at any time of year. However they are sweeter after a bit of frost. That is due to the plant moving natural antifreeze, in this case sugars, into the leaves mostly in the fleshy stems so be sure to include the stems that aren't woody. Heat stress can impart a slight bitter taste but not so off-putting as to be unpalatable.

We tend not to eat them in the summer down here due to their tendency to bolt and go to seed, fall planted, once they go through a cold cycle then experience heat. Spring or summer planted won't bolt until next spring but they'll get hit hard by cabbage loopers or struggle in the heat.

In your cooler climate you shouldn't have as much issue with bitterness and you won't be able to take them through winter like we do. They are not as cold hardy as winter cabbage.

We plant our winter collards from July to Sept and may set some out again in Feb to March.

You can do as we do in spring in fall. Pick everything, cut it up and blanch and freeze.

Tip, a few spoonfuls of sugar helps summer greens.

I assume you are growing hot peppers as you can't have collards without pepper sauce.

I like cowhorn peppers for that but any medium strength cayenne will do.

Yes I am growing several varieties of peppers
Thx for the clarification and tips.
They will be a staple of my daughters diet this summer.
I'm hooped for the invasion of insects.
So far the plants look good to me

save your bacon grease , clean and cut the collards , give them a bit of a fry then add water and let it become a broth , season and eat

also if you like chitlings they are good with a chitling soup

They do look good.

If bitterness is a concern the sweetest variety I've grown is the blue collards. They go by Alabama or Old Timey Blue now. I just knew them as blue collards coming up. We had blue and Georgia green. The blue are by far sweeter.

These are Georgia I believe.
I'm not sure I have ever had chitlings.
But the only time I ever had Collards
Was at a cookout and I luved it.
I have contacted the cook and offered to share for a hot mess of them.
She seems very excited.

My daughter will be more into it than me.
She just made me a jar of Jewel Weed / Plantain skin balm.

We grow ours for fall harvest. A little frost on them and they are great. When low temps are forecasted to be below 20 degrees, I cut them all. Cook with cured ham hocks. A little sugar (not much) and a little vinegar in the pots Chop and freeze, Enjoy all year. I probably cook 10-15 bushels and feed three families and a widow ladyfriend.

Morris Heading is my favorite seed. It makes a smaller collard often called a cabbage-collard.

Smoked pork neckbones.

Sear the bones in your stock pot to release the flavor.

Pour in a quart of chicken stock.

Put your washed and cut greens in.

Bring to boil then on low for an hour and a half. Mashing down the greens as they cook.

Serve with pepper sauce (hot peppers in white vinegar)


To wash and cut.

Pick leaves from bottom of plant leaving top growth. You can pick all season this way saving top for final picking.

Wash each leaf and stack until you have a good handful to work with. Roll up like a cigar and cut 3/4" slices.

Now if you're doing collards you need to learn how to measure them for serving.

You need a mess of collards.

A mess is about as much as you need to feed the mess of folks coming to supper. And with collards that's alot as they cook down alot. Figure about five times by volume.

You can add chopped onion or garlic, vinegar or sugar, maybe a pod or two of pepper.

A tip on chitlings.

You gotta know the cook. Don't trust just anyone with chitlings.

Talking to her.
She said smoked turkey tails is her favorite.
I be letting you know soon.

Thanks for the tips on storage Charles