Mystery Vegetable

We planted, what we thought were kale seeds at the beginning of November. These plants don't look anything like the mature kale plants we've seen. Does anyone know if it is kale, or what it is if it isn't?
Thanks! Margaret

sure looks like a tomato plant to me.

Tomato, definitely!

Veggiemom...I'd scoop them up and replant them farther apart...3 ft apart. You won't have kale but you'll certainly get a 'mater harvest!

by the way...WELCOME TO DG!

Dea, You sure are quick! We thought it was tomato also, but we can't believe we would have ended up with so many plants from one pile of compost that we added to the planting site.
Margaret

Thanks for the welcome Horseshoe! As you can tell, not only am I new to DG, but to gardening as well. Thanks to the hurricanes we have a lot more sunshine on our property now so we decided it was a good time to start growing plants instead of letting the oak trees kill everything.

We must have accidentally weeded out the kale sprouts and left the tomato since they were more familiar looking. Can anyone submit a picture of a newly sprouted kale plant for future identification?

Thanks, Margaret

Here are some pics at this link...click on the one in the first ling, far right , and that will then take you to a small write-up and you can get a view of some straight leaf kale. (Not sure what kind you planted, curled leaf of straight, but there are also other pics there.)

http://images.google.com/images?q=kale%20seedlings&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wi

Hey, Margaret -- Welcome! from another Floridian. By the way -- did you know about the Florida Roundup? I'm new enough that I don't know how to post the link. But it is in the Roundup forum. It's happening February 19! Hope you can make it. It's a bit of a drive but sounds like fun...will be my first roundup!
Sue

Hello Soozer...and a WELCOME TO DG to you, too!

Here's the link to the Fla Roundup:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/473332/#new

Welcome also! Well, they're not sprouts, but farmerdill has a nice photo at 6 weeks :)

http://davesgarden.com/pdb/showimage/58649/

Thanks everyone for the input and pics. We're pretty sure the kale is supposed to be flat leaf, but it does look so much like tomato that we'll take a wait and see for now. If it gets as cold Sunday night as they're predicting, I'll protect them just in case they are tomatoes.

I am planning on going to the RU on February 19th with my husband and two kids. We're looking forward to meeting everyone. Margaret

Break off a leaf and smell it.....tomato leaves smell like tomatoes.

And welcome!

For some reason, Tomato seeds seem to make it through almost any composting process intact. It seems that for every tomato you put in the compost pile you can expect 50 tomato plants from the finished compost.

Thanks Melody for the welcome and the advice. I'll try it when I get out this morning.

Geoz, I think you're right about tomato seeds. We've had volunteers pop up in unexpected places.
Margaret

tomatoe seeds are amazinglly strong. i had a volunteer yellow plum come up in the crack between two pieces of sidewalk...and it bore fruit. your sprouts definitely look like tomato plants to me.

want an unmistakable acid test ?

Just rub a leaf between your thumb and index finger then smell your fingers.

If it's a tomato there'll be no doubt from sniffing your digits. Unless of course your nose is stuffed up. In that case just run around the house asking someone to smell your finger. ;-)


I thought I had a volunteer tomato in an expanded bed by the mailbox this year. Figured it hitchiked out with compost. I was explaining this same test to a neighbor when telling her about the volunteer tomato. (well it LOOKED like a mater at that stage) However there was no smell. ?? Well duh - it grew into a fine CLEOME specimen!



This message was edited Dec 23, 2004 12:57 PM

Thanks everyone. I did the sniff test and I'd say it passed the tomato test. Oh well...I can't believe we pulled up all of the kale by mistake!!!!!! I would have never dreamed we'd have so many come up. I guess I'll just have to try the kale again.
Margaret

I tried to start the Italian white sunflower for 2 years and thought they must be picky because I didn't have anything to show for it.

Then a year or two later I picked up more seeds but just threw them and some other extras in a bare area in back and left them to their own devices. I monitored the sprouts and progress but didn't touch anything except a few dandelions and morning glories. I ended up with sunflowers that year. I had been "weeding" out the sunflower sprouts in the past. This variety didn't look like the typical sunflower sprout - reminded me of milkweed or thistle and I'd been ripping them out!!

Glad to know I'm not the only one whose weeded out the plants they wanted to grow. It would be nice if seed packages could show a picture of a sprout, not just the mature plant. Margaret

Planting a couple of seeds of any new variety in a small pot of soilless seed starter will show you exactly what they are, and then you can take a photo for future reference.

That's a good idea Mary, thanks!

There are many varieities of Kale. I planted a wild kale 5 years ago and will never want for kale plants again. If I don't pick the leaves, the plants blossom, sending kale seeds everywhere. My neighbors have wild kale plants now!!!
I, also, have had experiences with tomatoe seeds growing in my compost. i don't dare count on it, so buy seeds each year. It sounds like you are having fun with your garden. Way to go. Lolagarden

Wild kale, that's interesting. Did it look like tomatoes? The plants still look about the same so we're waiting. We've had pretty nice weather, highs 70s, lows 50s, so just about anything will grow right now. I am having a great time with the garden. I've planted a few things in the past, but once we harvested them, that was it. This time around I'm trying to do succession planting to keep things going all year. Thanks for the input. Margaret

Just thought I'd let everyone know that the mystery tomatoes are doing great. We never even protected the plants the few times a frost was predicted and they weren't damaged at all. As you can see (hopefully) in the pic, we have tons of tomatoes and flowers on the plants. Once March rolls around there's very little chance of freezes in this area so I expect to have a very early crop. We're certainly disappointed we didn't get any kale, but at least we got something edible! Margaret

I'd trade kale for tomatoes any day. And as to where they came from, compost piles somehow don't kill tomato seeds, so it is notorious for having a few surprises in it.

You're right Mary. I can eat tomatoes every day, but I can't say the same for kale. Margaret