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dinosaur kale or weed?

6 years ago

This is my first year planting both seeds and kale. this plant popped up where I planted my dinosaur kale seeds. however, it looks like a weed to me. Could this be dinosaur kale or should I pull it up?

Comments (13)

  • 6 years ago

    I guess I should add that in. I live in SE Michigan,l. The weather has been a bit warmer than average, but still cool (40s-50s, some days in the 60s. Some days it snows.) This plant has popped up before all my other plants. it's hard to tell from the photo, but the central vein is red-ish. To me, it just doesn't look like the photo on my seed package.

  • 6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Those leaves on the seed package do look bumpy. Many kale varieties have smooth leaves, though, and red veins too. If you planted many kale seeds, and that's the only thing that came up, that is a little suspicious. I'd just wait it out, and see if a lot more with the same appearance come up.

  • 6 years ago

    snip off a piece of leaf and taste it......

  • 6 years ago

    It looks like burdock to me. The dinosaur kale has very dark green leaves.

  • 6 years ago

    @randy41_1 Snipping off a piece and tasting is a terrible idea for an unknown plant. While this might be the kale planted, it may also be a weed that may or may not be edible. Eating is not a way of identification and only should be done with identified plants. Eating an unknown can make one very sick. If the plant has been narrowed down to only edibles and just might not taste as expected, sure, but if "weed" is still an option, I wouldn't chance it.

  • 6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Doesn't seem like Lacinato "Dinosaur" kale at all, and doesn't seem brassica in habit. Probably a "weed" that was growing in the area previously. Might be a naturalized burdock as Labrodors suggests, I think I see the same weed in Ohio.

  • 6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    It's 100% Burdock. Leaf shape, colour, growth habit and texture are all different from kale. Plus it is clearly a returning perennial rather than a seedling. All brassicas, which includes kales, start life as a pair of tiny heart shaped cotyledon leaves. The true leaves then appear between the cotyledons as miniature versions of the adult leaves. Your burdock shows none of those features.

  • 6 years ago

    Yep.

  • 6 years ago

    Thank you everyone for your help! I think I will just pull it. I'm not the adventurous type, and don't plan on eating things if I don't 100% know what they are!

  • 6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Actually, the leaves are very much kale-like. I haven't grown kale in a while, but you can pull up loads of kale leaf photos that look just like this stuff. I can believe burdock as well. I believe the test for that is that the underside of burdock leaves is whitish. Not so with kale.

  • 6 years ago

    Yup, that is exactly like my Michigan burdock. And I have seen way too much of it. You will likely need to do some digging to remove it. It looks like it is growing from last year's tap root which can be large and deep. Newly germinated seeds would not have leaves that large in SE Michigan at this time of year.

    I hate this plant even though it does have edible and medicinal parts. The velcro-like seeds heads from a tall seed stalk got stuck in my hair once when I was hiking and were awful to remove. I lost quite a bit of hair in the process. Some of the barbs that fell from the seed heads irritated my neck and back for a long time afterward. I still get itchy just thinking about it.

  • 6 years ago

    Yep again.