Cultivation Of Crops: Ornamental Kale Is Coloring Up

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco"
Often attributed to Mark Twain, but debunked by the good folks at Anchor Brewing.

The Sun Valley sales team travels a fair amount. Trade shows, customer visits and public outreach are part of the job and we love to get out and share our passion for flowers. These events are great because we are able to get direct feedback on our flowers and receive guidance in what we should be planting. The huge lilies we grow and beautiful bouquets we make often get the most comments, but a trend I've been seeing in the last year is people really taking notice of "ornamental kale," or what we like to call by the scientific name, brassica.

Brassica in a Bucket

This isn't a new crop to the flower industry, and in the horticulture world it is very established. What is new about this crop; is that now flower designers and consumers can get this traditional cool weather crop year round. The colors that are most in demand are the white, lavender and purple. This is where Sun Valley excels, since our farm located in Humboldt County stays pretty brisk all summer.

Purple Kale, about 6 weeks before harvest.

Welcome to the Jungle!

In order for the kale to "color up" you need cool temperatures at night. While most of the United States is sizzling in the 90's and 100's this time of year, July in coastal Humboldt is a very different story. Foggy mornings lead to clear afternoons, and with the sunset the clouds and moisture move back in from the sea. Our average July high is 63 degrees Fahrenheit, our average low is 52 degrees, and a peak in the record book reveals that our record low is 43 degrees and our record high is a hot and sweaty 76 degrees.

Arcata Cabbage!

Ornamental kale for flower and floral arranging

Lavender Ornamental Kale

While this sort of summer weather is frowned upon by many people, brassica absolutely loves it. This unique growing condition is the only way to get the ornamental kale to "color up." During the winter months we grow this crop at our farm in Oxnard, since it would be too cold and cloudy in Arcata.

Our kale is prized for the big heads. You can keep all the leaves on and use as a focal or pull off a few layers and use as a wonderful texture element.

Our "flower friend" J Schwanke did a great video with some design ideas last fall, check it out...he makes it look easy.

Keep an eye out for our brassica, it's not just for fancy designers and esoteric arrangements. Our customers are selling it as 3 stem consumer bunches and using it for great structure in bouquets. The purple will be especially hot going into autumn, since the trend for purple as a "fall color" keeps growing.

Lastly, this botanical shines as an American Grown and California Grown crop, I love that many old school flower folks just call brassica "cabbage." It really fits the whole farmer's market look and feel that is the predominant style we are seeing this season.