My landlady taught me. You buy collards which have a thick stalk on the bottom. Cut off that thick stalk and plant it (in the same direction it was when you bought it, bottom down in your pot or garden) in some cow manure or MiracleGro. Keep watered. Watch the leaves grow. The more you pick the leaves, the more they grow. I grow kale also, but we bought the plants from Home Depot. Did not try to grow from seeds yet. Here is how I cook collards and kale. My African American neighbor laughs at me, but this is very tasty. First I boil down the greens until they get soft. Then I drain them, put some olive oil in a frying pan, gently cook some garlic, parsley, onion, a little hot pepper if you want, we grow wild tomatoes, so those are always in the mix, maybe also some cooked beets or green beans, then I add the kale or collards and heat thoroughly. YUMMY and super-healthy. You can also top a microwaved sweet potato with this cooked mixture. I'm a vegetarian, so for me, this is the entree, but you can use it as a side dish. You can also grow collards from seeds, but HEY, that takes forever. The "stalk" method is 100% better. I eat greens every day. They are high in calcium. A lot of women need extra calcium. LMK if you have any questions. Carolyn in Broward County, Florida, zone 10. johnmillerz2003 (at) yahoo.com

My first thought on seeing the lighter green plants was something like a mustard green. Broccoli plants more often have some wavy indentations of the leaf margins than shows here. About the number of days -- that will vary with the season. Going into shorter daylight will slow them a bit. May have to wait a bit to see which is which.

This is such a confusing old thread that I can understand how it just generates more questions and how there is probably a reluctance by some to step in with any answers. Let me just say what I do: I grow bok choy each year and try to have it for as much of the growing season as possible. That means I sow seed and resow seed. I move plants around first out of the greenhouse and also where the bok choy seedlings are a little too crowded in a seed bed. Bok choy seems to bolt fairly easily. I think it bolts when it is stressed by too much cold just as it does when conditions are hot and dry. There is probably only a fairly narrow window when its growth is optimum but this doesn't mean it is unusable all the rest of the season! As far as treating it as a cut-and-come-again when harvesting leaves: I've never done that and I've grown bok choy for a good 20 years. The flower buds are a different story, however. Sure, if it would take a half dozen of your plants to make a fork-full and the plants are already bolting - you haven't got much going in the bok choy patch. But, if your baby bok choy is as big around as your wrist and it starts to send a flower stalk up - get that and bring it into the kitchen! Even if the little yellow flowers have started to open -- to me, that flower stalk is the sweetest part of the plant and is often, plenty tender! It would be a shame, to my way of thinking, to throw that plant in the compost. The lower leaves, however, are probably too tough to enjoy. But, if you've got 1 good-sized flower stalk, chances are, you will get a couple more off that plant in a few days. Of course, they will be smaller. Yes, tender little bok choy leaves are great. And, if they have begun to bolt - their season is coming to an end. All the more reason to have seed going in the ground just about every week. You may have to take a month or 2 off from sowing bok choy seed but get back to it as the temperatures begin to drop in late summer. Bok choy makes a fine fall crop here and probably where you garden, also. Steve

I'll be cursing in July, but it was beautiful here today, so of course I was out in the garden. I added on to my strawberry bed so it will be about 6x6'. It's somewhat lasanga-d with some fresh manure and scraps on bottom, then layers of topsoil and finished compost. I'm also building a U-shaped bed around a stump, with a plum in a tub on top of the stump. This bed will be for my melons and summer squash. I also put in another bed, about 8' long, and 3' most of the way, then tapering at one end. This will be for tomatoes, cukes, and probably peppers, eggplants, and okra, if there's still room (the bed will extend the other way another 8'. I'm planning a long, narrow bed to use up the remaining space, probably about 2'x10'. I'm thinking it will be mainly for cutting flowers this year (and to attract pollinators), and I may put in my perennial herbs there. The job for tomorrow is to haul slash wood out of the corner and dig it up for potatoes - blue and Yukon golds. My peas broccoli and cauliflower are doing well, and my carrots are coming up. I also found some volunteer lettuces from last year's beds, and transplanted them, so should be in salads in a few weeks. Outside of the garden proper, I'm sheet composting and will be tilling in OM for a 4x30' bed for 3 varieties of corn and sunflowers, with watermelon, pumpkin, and wintersquash rambling through them. Should make a nice screen until I can get a proper fence built along the alley.