Champion Collards

Champion is an improved Vates-type collard bred for bolt resistance, holding in the garden far longer before going to seed than older strains. The robust plants produce large, broad, slightly crumpled, waxy blue-green leaves with a milder, sweeter flavor than kale. Champion is the rare green that tolerates both heat and hard cold - it pushes through Southern summers and survives Northern winters, often delivering tender early-spring greens - making it one of the most productive and forgiving leafy crops a gardener can grow.

✅ Plant alongside

Good neighbors that attract beneficial insects or deter pests

• Onions — Pungent scent helps deter the cabbage moths and beetles that target collards
• Dill — Attracts parasitic wasps and ladybugs that hunt aphids and caterpillars
• Nasturtium — Trap crop that draws aphids and flea beetles away from the leaves
• Beets — Share the bed neatly and use a different root zone than the leafy collards

❌ Keep away from

🛡️ Pest & disease prevention

Proactive ways to stop trouble before it starts — tap a name with an arrow for its full guide

• Cabbage worms →

  Row cover from transplant, handpicking, and Bt for heavy infestations; the waxy leaves give some natural protection

• Aphids →

  Hose colonies off leaf undersides and plant dill or alyssum to draw their predators

• Flea beetles →

  Protect young plants with row cover until they size up past the shothole stage

• Harlequin bugs →

  Handpick the shield bugs and egg clusters and remove brassica debris in fall

• Cabbage loopers →

  Exclude moths with row cover and treat larvae with Bt

🌾 Harvest & storage

Begin picking Champion at about 60 days, or earlier for tender young leaves. Harvest the lower, outer leaves first by snapping them at the stem and leave the central growing point, and the plant will keep producing upward for months - true cut-and-come-again. Flavor sweetens noticeably after frost, so the best collards come from fall and winter. Harvest while leaves are still deep green and pliable; old leaves toughen.

🥗 Nutrition & benefits

Collards are a nutritional standout, especially for vitamin K, where a cooked serving provides many times the daily value, plus large amounts of vitamin A as beta-carotene, vitamin C, folate, and fiber at very few calories. Cooked collards are also a notable plant source of calcium. Like Brussels sprouts and broccoli they contain glucosinolates, and a frost makes the leaves sweeter and more tender.