Chomolia – Perennial African Kale – Brassica oleracea

Email *

Receive an email notification when this item is back in stock.

Join the waitlist!

***In the summer of 2022, Chomolia proved to be not as bulletproof a survivor as 2021.  Roughly half of our plantings did not survive the summer while in 2021 we had almost 100 percent survival.  Reports from customers were also somewhat mixed.  As of now, we are considering this a possibly perennial kale for Florida that isn’t living up to all what we hoped based on 2020-2021 results.  It remains a very amazing and interesting food crop that we will continue to cultivate ourselves and offer to customers.  Please do not order Chomolia thinking it will be a “stick it and forget it” perennial in Florida.  Thank you for understanding. ***

Chomolia is a perennial kale/collards from southern African countries such as Zambia and Zimbabwe.  This variety is widely known where it is native and farmed on a commercial scale but somehow never became known in the climatically similar state of Florida.  What makes this variety distinctive is that it is perennial and propagated only by cuttings.  Cuttings can even be planted directly into the soil, analogous to sweet potato.  This removes the fickle step of starting seedling flats that newer gardeners struggle to get right.  Whenever you want a new kale plant, you just take cuttings!

In Florida, the trouble with perennial Brassicas is getting them to survive the summer.  We trialed this variety against 3 different clones of “tree kale” from the nursery trade and were very pleased that a population of around 10 plants had 100 percent survival while all three clones of tree kale died.  This makes this variety the likely candidate for a Florida substitute for these plants that so many Florida gardeners have wanted to grow so badly.  It makes great sense that a variety from Africa would be the one to do well in this climate.  At this point, our plants have survived one summer.  How many years the plants live is not known yet.  Even if they only live 18 months, this is no problem because it’s so easy to take cuttings and start a new patch as is common with many perennial herbaceous vegetables and herbs.  Plants look absolutely awful through the summer months and basically defoliate.  In September they regenerate and produce abundantly through the cool season until around May.

This is a variety of Brassica oleracea.  It is important to note that this is NOT the same as Ethiopian kale which is Brassica carinata and a totally different plant.

Though it seems too good to be true, we were blown away to discover the high quality of the greens in conjunction with all the other great qualities of this plant.  We have found the flavor and tenderness to surpass our old standard dinosaur kale and this will be our only kale we grow to eat in the future in our garden.  The greens are simply fantastic cooked up with kale or collard recipes.

We ship bundles of 3 healthy cuttings.  Cuttings are delicately packed into plastic with moisture to maintain quality in transit.  Before selling, we mailed trial bundles to friends and plantings had high take rates.  Depending on inventory, we try our best to include one larger cutting along with two smaller cuttings.  Even very small cuttings have good take rates.  We recommend rooting cuttings in a small pot in a soil mix with good drainage in dappled shade.  Cuttings can be planted directly into the ground but with lower take rates.