1stop Organic Gardening

Kale is a member of the brassica family – along with cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, rocket and others. It’s a vegetable I’ve overlooked til this year. Not sure why. But don’t you just find that there’s always another vegetable or herb that you’ve never grown before? Somehow you just weren’t aware of it?

I must say, I’m really impressed with this under-valued vegetable. It is really easy to grow and seems to laugh at our 40 degree C days. It really loves the heat. And it seems the more we pick it, the healthier and faster it grows.

I mean, just look at those healthy leaves! I can’t believe it really – everything else (except the basil, which is also loving the heat) has either suffered massively with the heat or turned up it’s toes and died. Not the Kale – it’s gorgeous.

The only problem we had was with aphids, but we kept squirting them off with the hose and they have been aphid-free for some time now. Besides, they don’t do that much damage and you can wash them off when you’re preparing it to cook or pull off the small part of the leaf that they were growing on.

Kale is delicious quickly fried in a little olive oil with onion, or included in a stir-fry.

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Filed under: vegetables on February 15th, 2009