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As much as I love my tomatoes, I have become more and more enamored with leafy greens. Of the leafy greens, kale is probably my favorite. It is one of the most healthful foods you can grow, and it is one of those plants that really doesn't need much babying in the garden - always a good quality!
Nutritional Info:
Kale is a nutritional powerhouse. One cup has zero fat, 33 calories, and provides 206% of your daily vitamin A requirement and 134% of your daily vitamin C, as well as 9% of your daily iron and 6% of your daily calcium requirement.
It also provides plenty of fiber, antioxidants, and folate. Everyone should be eating this stuff!
Growing Kale:
Kale is easy to grow, too. Sow seed directly in your garden after your last frost date for spring and early summer harvests, and six to eight weeks before your first fall frost for fall (and maybe even winter) harvests. A good rule of thumb is to plant three to four plants per person in your household. It needs full sun and well drained soil, and, if given these two things, kale will require very little babying from you other than regular watering and weeding. I feed mine with fish emulsion monthly, and it grows beautifully.
To keep it growing after a few light frosts in the fall, mulch the entire plant with three to six inches of leaves or straw. Kale touched by a light frost often tastes better.
Eating and Preserving Kale:
The leaves can be harvested young to eat either raw or cooked, or harvested fully-grown to cook into soups and stews or sauteed with olive oil and garlic as a healthy side dish. If you want to preserve kale from your garden, simply blanch it by cooking it in boiling water for three minutes, then transferring it to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and remove as much excess moisture as possible, and store in your freezer for up to a year.
Favorite varieties: - "Lacinato," also known as "Black Tuscan" kale or "dinosaur" kale. "Lacinato" is an heirloom variety with great, mild flavor and beautiful bluish-black leaves. - "Red Russian" is a gorgeous heirloom variety of kale with pinkish-purple stems and veins and almost silvery leaves. Excellent eaten raw or cooked, with a slight nutty flavor. - "Winterbor" is a very winter-hardy variety with dark greenish-blue, curled leaves. It is a hybrid variety that is a vigorous grower, often reaching two feet tall at maturity. I hope you'll try growing kale in your garden. It's not often that you get so much reward for so little work. More: Organic Gardening
