As a garden vegetable, kale is an all around winner.  It is easy to grow, has great taste, and is an attractive plant which can add beauty to your garden.  From a nutritional standpoint, it is a super-food loaded with nutrients and compounds such as beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin C.  It is rich in minerals such as iron, manganese, calcium and potassium and has sulfur containing phytonutrients. 

Kale is related to collard greens and the cabbage family.  It is a cool / cold weather plant that can be seeded as soon as the soil can be worked in early spring for late spring or early summer harvest.  It can also be seeded in late summer or early fall for harvest throughout the winter.  Its taste will actually improve when it has been nipped by a frost.  However, it will turn rather bitter when temperatures heat up.

We decided to give kale a try last fall and the result was a great learning experience for us.   Over the last few years we have endeavored to extend the growing season into the late fall and early winter by using row covers and cold frames.  We planted the kale in late September with the hope of harvesting young leaves from the plants throughout the winter months.   The garden bed was under a covered hoop tunnel to protect the crop from the extreme winter temperatures that are possible here.  Then it began to snow and snow and snow! These repeated heavy snows resulted in the hoop tunnel collapsing on the garden bed.  Our kale was hopelessly buried and the row cover was now frozen to the ground.

In March of this year the snow and ice melted enough to where we were able to get the row cover off the garden bed.  The crop was matted down, but seemed to be alive.  It wasn’t long before this valiant warrior plant began springing (no pun intended) to life.  The end result was a bountiful harvest of this fresh, tasty green throughout the spring.

Kale is a versatile vegetable which adds a unique flavor to salads.  It can be added to soups and omelets; it can be braised or sautéed with onions and garlic.  Kale is also easily dried and stored, and wonderful for adding to soups, etc.   There is a great recipe for making baked kale chips which literally melt in your mouth.  Do a Google Search for kale chips and for other great recipes.

About the authors: Ken and Bernie have a love for the land and a drive to be good stewards of that which they have been entrusted.  Their garden is located on a pristine, beautiful little corner of Marilyn Farms that is buffered on all sides from any conventional type of farming or gardening.  What started out as a little tomato patch of six plants in 1991 has since evolved into a raised-bed garden of about 20 plots all worked by hand.