The collard greens’ tiny sprouts have broken through, on schedule, as have those of both their neighbors, the Swiss chard and the kale. The Swiss chard’s two seed leaves are elongated, like little green bananas. The two seed leaves for the collard greens and kale, their close cousin, are quite circular, more like Mickey Mouse’s ears.
There are lots of those tiny shoots poking their heads up out of the soil. They look adorable. And the kids who walk past the Garden on the way to school seem to take delight in them.
We’ll start thinning these seedlings pretty soon. We don’t want them crowding each other. So the Reaper comes soon. We’ll thin them out, saving only the most promising, leaving the survivors spaced maybe just an inch from one another. That’s just the first thinning. There will be more. As soon as leaves come close to touching, out comes the weaker-looking of the two.
If I understand this right, at some point we’ll end up with collards standing as much as 2 feet from one another.