One vegetable that I have grown in my raised garden bed has been kale. I have dabbled with a few different varieties but my family and I prefer curly kale.
A few summers ago I tried dinosaur kale but the texture was just too tough for my liking. I seem to have great success with growing the standard kind of kale so I have gone with that.
Kale is so versatile because it can be eaten both raw and cooked. When you eat it raw, it is best to wash it in a salad spinner. Then remove the vein in the middle, and chop with a knife. I place my chopped kale in a bowl. Then add a small amount of olive oil to the bowl and gently massage it. This breaks down the toughness of the kale leaves. I generally leave the kale leaves to sit while I prep the rest of my ingredients for my salad. Kale is a good base as a salad and can either have vegetables or fruit added to it.
Kale is also fabulous cooked and used as a replacement for spinach. It is excellent in soups and stews and even adding it to pasta dishes for extra vitamins. I am able to freeze kale from my garden as well. It just easily goes in freezer bags to use another day.
Last summer, I planted kale in my garden and was able to continue harvesting right up until January. The year before had been December for the last harvest. I have a running joke with my Dad and Mom. It has become a challenge to see just how long the kale will last. It just seems to keep producing! Maybe next year it will be February? The funniest part is that my Dad never liked kale for his entire life until I started to grow it, now he comes with a ‘kale bag’ and we fill it up weekly.
This year, I didn’t get a chance to remove the kale plants before the snow fell. So I left them and didn’t really think about it anymore. Then the snow started to melt and Spring began to spring. Low and behold the one kale plant started getting green and looking pretty good! I removed the other plants that were definitely expired. The old kale plant had new growth and was looking really healthy.
I just harvested several great looking leaves from my lone kale plant from summer 2022. I did some reading and apparently there can be 2 year old kale. It has a sightly tougher texture. It may not last the entire season; however, kudos to me because now I don’t have to buy greens at the grocery store.
And so ends the tale of the kale!
Do you ever get really excited about something? Well on my latest adventure to my local garden centre I soaked up the wonder of the West Coast Seeds display.
I perused the great selection of seeds and was so excited to find some ground cherry seeds. I had recently seen these on Instagram and was hoping to be able to get my hands on a package. Every year I try to plant something different that I have not tried before. My daughter has brought home ground cherries from the Atwater Market in Montreal and I’ve had them in desserts in fancy restaurants. I am so excited to be able to add them to my dessert plates later on in the summer.
I also found scallopini squash, rainbow blend carrots, and golden beets, all of which I am excited to grow and enjoy from the garden.
Another great find was the West Coast Seeds 2023 Gardening Guide. This booklet is jam packed with an abundance of seed choices, as well as great gardening content. I also checked out the their website and it is a great resource for the home gardener. It has tips and tricks, resources, seeds, supplies. You can even take a seed quiz to see what types of seeds are good to grow in your area!
One of the gardening tools I added to my collection this season is this seed sprayer from Lee Valley. This German made sprayer is gentle enough to use without disturbing seedling roots or soil.
If you have never planted seeds or had a garden I encourage you to try it. It doesn’t have to be big, and you can even create your home garden in pots or containers. Growing your own food, nurturing it, and then being able to harvest it and share it with the ones you love is a wonderful thing. Go plant some seeds!
