Sad looking right now, but I think they'll rebound when Spring comes. The encouraging parts are that they're showing quite a bit of variability and at least that one purplish one (at the bottom) is about as happy as the weedy mustard (bottom right). These are glossy leaf selections descended from a mixture of Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale, Green Glaze Collard Greens, and an ornamental purple/red cabbage/kale. In 2010, I interbred this population with Tuscan kale. Now with all this variability to work with, I need to do a large planting and really start to put some heavy selective pressures on them (for winter-hardiness, insect resistance, etc.) The latest insect plague has been Harlequin bugs. Seeing the damge that they've done, it sure would be nice to select for more resistance to those.
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