WHY grow kale (Brassica oleracea)?

I mean sure it’s nutrient dense, reliable for ten months of the year and bombproof…

Kale is jammed full of vitamins and minerals.

It’s a prolific plant which is always what you want in your veggie garden.
Make life easy.

Harvesting is simple.

Just snap off the lowest leaves as you need them for continuous picking over most of the year.

It has a well deserved reputation for being hardy.

The plants are known to have done well here through hot drought periods as well as inundating wet periods!

This is also a perennial plant who will last for at least two years in this area.

Hooray, less work!

Kale’s favourite and most prolific time is the cool season.

Now is a good time to get it going in your garden.

Frost affects kale….making it taste sweeter.

Mature kale plants are fine with frost and snow.

This is a plant who will grow and be productive through Canadian, Scottish and Russian winters, and taste sweeter for the cold. Crazy!

Not only that, kale will grow through our belting summers.

It may slow down over the hottest months and appreciate some shade cloth, but it shouldn’t die and does not tend to bolt in the heat either.

This is definitely a resilient food staple.

As a brassica, it suffers from the unwanted attentions of the cabbage moth who lays her caterpillar eggs on all the brassica family for munching.

There are fewer cabbage moths around in winter but you most likely will need to do *something* about the cabbage moth.

Other creatures who might want a piece of kale are snails when the plants are small.

Did you know kale plants can grow to be a two meter high stalk?

Once the kale gets some height, it’s usually out of reach of snails.

Bowerbirds might take a fancy to the kale and netting works to foil their destruction too.

Brassica crops are quick growing so it is important that plants have immediate access to nutrients.

Kale, being a leafy vegetable, loves nitrogen.

It also appreciates phosphorus.

So, chook poo or a sneaky outdoor pee when the plant is tall enough to avoid splashing the leaves.

Hygiene!

There are a huge number of varieties of kale to try.

What to do with it?

Use it anywhere you would use spinach! It’s versatile.

Kale chips are popular too.

Want to get growing?

More detail at www.wherefishsing.com under Bello Food Gardening.

Supported by Bellingen Shire Council via Bellingen Shire Disaster Recovery and Resilience Grant Program Funding.

 

By Fiona MORGAN