Tuesday, October 12, 2010

So, after pulling (rather, digging) out all our kale plants months ago, I noticed yesterday that we have more growing again. I know I've mentioned that I have kale in past blogs. I just checked and found two references, one here. But I've not talked of it enough for you to understand much of how this new sighting makes me laugh and the kids groan. It's too bad I didn't take pictures the first year when I planted out 6 little seedlings that quickly grew to be huge plants. I didn't really like kale before I planted it. You'll discover that's typical of my gardening habits. I plant some things so that I'll learn to like them and with some exceptions I usually do. Of course there are some things I think I like that I learn to dislike. Well, I quickly learned to like kale. We had so much of it I had to eat or be eaten. Search for kale recipes online and you'll most often come across kale chips. Worth a try. And it became my favourite way to prepare the greens. You see, kale doesn't get mushy like spinach. It gets crispy. And when you add a little oil and sea salt to the mix it becomes a snack worthy of any potato chip bag. K2 shared my enjoyment--a little too much at times until I learned to double my batch size. The plants survived a few frosts, tasted fine and continued to grow until they were covered by snow. So much for my kale. I hoped that maybe one plant would survive the winter as the package said but it was a long shot.

So I thought.

The snow melted and first one plant then another and finally a total of 8 plants grew and thrived. (How good is your math?) We--as in me and K2--were eating kale in April long before any other plant showed its tips. They went to seed, I dug them up, giggled when a new one that had seemed dead resurrected and then went to seed. It has literally been months since I dug up each and every plant. I found myself craving kale so that I even bought some from the market to make my chips and stir-fry with my cabbage. It wasn't as good but I didn't have to inspect it as closely for caterpillars.

And now there's a good sized plant again on its way. Kale into November again this year and who knows? maybe spring? One day I'll post a picture for you and you can smile with me at the silliness of kale that won't go away.


1 comment:

los cinco nomads said...

A few weeks later BTG spotted rogue kale plants in other parts of the garden. I guess the seeds blew off before I dug them up. I wonder what will happen next year?