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!