Red Russian Kale

Where Red Russian comes from

Red Russian is an open-pollinated heirloom of the Siberian kale line — Brassica napus, which arose from a natural cross of field mustard/turnip and wild cabbage, making it the same species as rutabaga and rapeseed. The same open-lobed 'Ragged Jack' type was documented in Europe by the mid-1800s (Fearing Burr listed it in his 1863 catalog, and Vilmorin-Andrieux recorded 'Ragged Jack').

It's been grown in North America since roughly 1885, commonly credited to Russian traders bringing it into Canada. You'll find it in the record under a handful of names: Ragged Jack, Russian Red, Hanover Salad, and Rouge de Russie.

The tender, purple-stemmed leaf

Red Russian is easy to identify and easy to eat. The leaves are flat, oak-leaf or arugula-shaped, with deeply lobed, frilled-toothed margins — not the tight curls of Scotch kale — on a blue-green to gray-green blade with unmistakable purple-red stems, midribs, and veins. In cold weather the red deepens and the whole leaf blushes purple around the stem. It grows as a low, spreading, ground-hugging rosette rather than the tall stalk of a Lacinato.

The leaves are noticeably thin, tender, and floppy — soft enough to eat raw straight off the plant, milder and sweeter and far less bitter than curly kale, almost arugula-like when young. A light frost markedly deepens that sweetness, since cold converts the plant's starch to sugar. Older leaves get earthier and are better cooked, but even then it stays on the delicate, mild end of the kale spectrum.

It's not the kale species you think

Here's a genuinely surprising bit of botany: Red Russian isn't the same species as most kale. It's Brassica napus (variety pabularia) — a turnip × wild-cabbage hybrid, the same species as rutabaga and canola — not the Brassica oleracea that curly and Lacinato kales belong to. Seed catalogs even disagree: some label it B. oleracea, while extension botany (NC State) files it under B. napus, Pabularia Group.

Mostly this is a fun fact, but it matters in one practical place: seed-saving. Because it's napus, it will cross with turnips, rutabaga, other napus kales, and canola/rapeseed, so keeping pure seed needs real isolation — don't assume it behaves like an oleracea kale in the seed patch.

Growing Red Russian

It's a cool-season biennial grown as an annual for greens. Give it full sun and fertile, evenly moist soil; it grows best around 50–75°F, and the seed germinates across a wide range in about 6–10 days. In spring, direct-sow after the last frost and keep sowing until daytime temps push past about 80°F; for fall, sow roughly two months before frost for full leaf, up until frost for baby leaf.

Thin to about 12–18 inches apart for full plants, or leave it dense and unthinned for baby-leaf cutting. Harvest cut-and-come-again — take the outer leaves and leave the growing center to keep producing. Flavor is best after a light frost. It's very cold-hardy and overwinters under mulch in mild zones, though expect it to bolt in spring when it resumes growth.

What goes wrong — and the fixes

Fast post-harvest wilting is the big one, and the fix is cold-chain discipline: pick in the cool of the morning, dunk or cool the leaves immediately, and refrigerate. It won't hold in a bag on the counter like a stiff curly leaf.

Cabbage-family pests all still apply — cabbage aphids in the growing tips, imported cabbage worms and loopers chewing holes, flea beetles peppering seedlings. Exclude the moths and beetles with floating row cover early, hose off aphids, and use Bt for caterpillars.

Bolting in heat and long days turns the leaves bitter — time crops for spring and fall and harvest young. And because the leaves are soft, they show freeze burn, wind tatter, and slug damage more than a stiff curly type; for maximum deep-winter durability, a Scotch curly kale holds up better even though Red Russian is plenty hardy.

In the kitchen

Raw is Red Russian's signature: baby-leaf salads and cut salad mixes, or a massaged kale salad that softens with almost no effort thanks to the tender leaf. It's also a natural in smoothies and green juice, and makes good microgreens and shoots.

When you cook it, cook it fast and add it late — a quick sauté or stir-fry — because it wilts and collapses in seconds. What it isn't is a stew kale: it won't hold its shape or bite through a long braise or a pot of soup the way Lacinato or curly kale will. Reach for those when you want structure, and reach for Red Russian when you want tender and sweet.