We’re now 2 years into our first successful attempt at growing the European Sea Kale, and have just finished our first flowering season. They key to success with Crambe maritima seems to be growing it hot and dry, since it resides in our gravel crevice garden. How cool is it to have a plants that is both ornamental and edible!
My guess is cooler roots. It is all over England and I got mine from a nursery in Maine.
Tastes like regular kale? Will it bolt in the heat?
“Bolt” is a term usually reserved for unattractive flowering. Yes, they flower in April, but we grow them for both foliage and flower, so we want them to “bolt”.
In your photo, Crambe marítima looks lovely; I have seen its relative Crambe cordifolia in bloom, and that is a show-stopper!
This is great, I’ve started using kale in some of my meals
I love this plant, and I would never eat it because it just doesn’t produce that many leaves (though the young leaves are edible) The flowers are very sweetly scented and the long foliage is the most extraordinary waxy blue color. It looks great flowing out onto my sidewalk in PA. I saw them growing on the flint gravel flats in Rye England, though they do well enough in regular soil for me.