How to Grow Red Russian Kale
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Red russian kale is exceptionally cold-hardy, tolerating temperatures down to below -20°C, making it one of the most frost-tolerant kale varieties. It's typically grown as a cut-and-come-again crop: harvest individual young leaves for salads while leaving the growing point intact to keep producing, or let leaves mature for cooking.
Core growing advice on this page is checked against named horticultural sources — see References.
Red Russian Kale (Brassica napus var. pabularia)
2 sources cited · Verified
Quick Facts
| Factor | Value |
|---|---|
| Soil texture | loam or sand (RHS) |
| Drainage | well-drained |
| Lifecycle | biennial grown as an annual |
| Edible parts | leaves |
| Documented problems | 4 diseases, 4 pests |
At a Glance
Diseases
Pests
Soil & Growing Conditions
Water: fertile, moist but well-drained (RHS)
Growth Stages
| Stage | BBCH | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sowing | 0 | Sow indoors in mid-spring (RHS). |
| Transplanting | 3 | Transplant outdoors May-July, in rows 60cm apart, into fertile, moist but well-drained soil (RHS). |
| Leaf growth | 4 | Deeply cut, frilled leaves develop with distinctive purple veining; can be picked cut-and-come-again from this stage (RHS). |
| Harvest | 8 | Pick young leaves for salads or mature leaves for cooking; remove yellowing leaves as the only maintenance needed (RHS). |
Harvest & Storage
When to pick: Can be harvested cut-and-come-again for tender young salad leaves, or left to mature for cooking; pick individual leaves as needed, leaving the growing point to keep producing (RHS).
Plan your Red Russian Kale planting
Timing for Red Russian Kale follows soil temperature and frost, not the calendar date. The Global vegetable planting calendar explains the method. To work out where it fits in your beds, sketch your plot in the free Garden Layout Planner.
Growing Red Russian Kale in another region
Sowing dates, frost timing and local advice differ by country. Use the guide for where you garden.
Sources
The full list of 2 sources behind this guide (Royal Horticultural Society, Utah State University Extension) is in the references of our UK guide to red russian kale; they describe the plant itself, which is the same wherever it grows.
Frequently Asked Questions
What problems affect red russian kale?
Our data links 4 diseases and 4 pests to this crop. See the sections above for each one and how to manage it.
Plan next season before the problems start
This page gives you the thresholds; the planner turns them into your own calendar. It works from what you can observe and measure in your garden rather than from dates written for somebody else’s latitude.
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How this guide is put together
The growing data on this page — sowing windows, pests, diseases, soil and site requirements — comes from named horticultural sources, listed in References below, checked against international horticultural research and extension sources. An automated pipeline assembles that verified data into the page you're reading: it selects which facts to lead with and builds the surrounding prose and layout. It does not invent a date, a source or a number — where a verified value for a field isn't available, the page leaves it out rather than guessing. A person reviews and publishes each page; nothing goes live unverified.
Related Problem Guides
Last verified 2026-09-02
Related guides
More from the same group (brassicas & mustards):
Where To Go From Here
Take this crop from reading into a written plan for your own beds.
Keep going
Plan the next step
Use the printable SoilCommander planner for your region to turn this guide into sowing dates, bed layouts and weekly garden tasks.