covered kale

My kale is now covered. I bought some galvanized stainless wire and made hoops and then covered them with row cover and secured with plastic pegs. I picked a good batch of it a couple weeks ago (photo below), but ended up composting it because there were too many holes in the leaves for it to be appetizing. Hopefully the cover will help. Of course, it doesn't get rid of the caterpillars that are already on the leaves. It just prevents the moths from laying more eggs.

On the far side of the covered kale are my baby broccoli plants. These are also being eaten, presumably by the cabbage white caterpillars. I will have to cover these plants too. My next project....

I looked hard, but didn't find any green caterpillars. Since I have noticed many cabbage white butterflies, I assume this caterpillar is who is eating my brassica. The caterpillar I did find is pictured below. It is tiny and like an inchworm, but I don't know what type of worm it is.


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Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)
cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae)

much too cold

I'm hoping this is our coldest temperature of the year. 8 degrees F (or -13C)! Even too cold for my kale, which ended up with lots of little frozen spots on the leaves. Dinosaur kale is listed as cold hardy to 10F. I'm looking forward to the warming trend that is predicted for the coming week.

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

checking on the brassicas

I have kept my kale and broccoli under row cover to protect them from the cabbage worms. Today I peeked under for a check. I found five fat green cabbage worms helping themselves to the broccoli. Not too much damage, but the idea was to have no damage. It looks like I will need to replace the cover with one that has fewer holes in it. I left the five fat worms out on the walkway for the hungry baby sparrows and robins.

I think also think the broccoli should be bigger by now. It should be heading. Not sure, but it seems like it. I'm thinking about moving them to my sunnier community garden this weekend.

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Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

happy St Patrick's day

my kale seedlings

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Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

broccoli and butterflies

I transplanted my young broccoli seedlings from their seed tray to the garden this weekend. I gave them a space between a row of dill and one of kale. I spaced them about 5 inches apart. They seem pretty happy. I noticed that the fall crop of broccoli at a nearby farm is only a little bigger than mine now.

I've been enjoying several small white butterflies that bounce and flutter and play over my garden in the mornings. This pretty white butterfly is called a Cabbage White (Pieris rapae). It is one of the most common butterflies in North America. The photo shows one sipping nectar from one of my cucumber flowers. A little research showed me that this lovely insect has caterpillars that enjoy eating kale and broccoli. Ah-ha! So that's where the holes in the leaves have been coming from. The solution seems to be row covers. A little leaf damage doesn't affect my broccoli florets, but now I know that if I want un-holey kale I should consider row covers.

Brassicaceae
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae)
butterflies (Lepidoptera)

my first vegetable sprouts!!!

The kale and escarole in my indoor trays have sprouted already. Yipppeee. Its only been 4 days since sowing. (Photos later.)

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Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

kale soup

Two superlatives. Tonight may be one of the most beautiful nights of the year. And tonight I made the best soup I have ever tasted! Garden kale, 'Tongues of Fire" dried beans, my frozen garden tomatoes and local keilbasa. Yummm!!

(more soon)
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

rain drops on kale

We've been lucky to have a good soaking rain for the past couple days. And our weather has cooled off and become more like fall.
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

dinosaur kale with fleabane

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Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

snow on kale

Our first snow! Its a very pretty light dusting. It probably won't last more that an hour or so.

My kale is delicious now. It is getting sweeter every time I try it. The more cold and snow, the better it gets.

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

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my seedlings on Easter morning

They are all growing very fast. The peppers came up today. The kale and escarole have their second set of leaves starting. The onions are straightening up. I move the trays around during the day to catch the best sunlight. Also, I am working on thinning out the more dense seedlings. After seeing Gretta's nice individual plants that aren't stretching out like mine, I am trying to do better at this though its hard to trow away cute little plants.

I have almost 3 trays planted now - with 17 different varieties of vegetables.

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

checking on the mid winter kale

I went out to the garden this morning to check on the kale. I haven't been out there in a few days. I didn't realize we had more snow coming in, but there is another fresh layer coming down. I had to dig down to find the kale.

The more tender Red Russian kale has frost damage. Little round spots on the leaves. Last year, once it got these it looked terrible after bringing it inside and thawing. This happened at 10*F last year. Our temps got down to about 8* over the past few nights.

But the curly Winterbor looks good. This is the first year I've grown this variety. I've read it can survive the winter. We just finished up a big pot of kale soup I made a few days ago. Yummy. Maybe I'll pick some to saute tonight.

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

krinkly kale leaves

I've been admiring the krinkles and colors of my kale leaves. They seem to get prettier by the day. Hard to choose between kale soup and more kale photos. As they say: you can't have your kale and eat it too ... (I do actually have enough for both.)

The varieties here are Tuscan kale (thin blue leaves with dinosaur like krinkles), red Russian kale (giant ruffled leaves with purple/pink stems) and winterbor kale (very very curly blueish leaves).

Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

checking under the row covers

My broccoli seedlings look like happy campers under their row cover. And when I checked my dinosaur kale I was amazed at the beautiful big crinkled leaves. I've never used row cover in the summer before and am impressed at how warm and bright and humid it is underneath. The plants are growing very well.

I covered my kale and broccoli because of green caterpillars of cabbage white butterfly. These were eating holes in the leaves of the kale and eating entire baby broccoli plants.


Brassicaceae
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae)

kale survived the winter

Yesterday I finally made it over to my garden (10 feet from my house) and checked on the kale. The Tuscan is dead. The Red Russian lost all its leaves, but looks like it is regrowing some small leaves now. The Winterbor looks fantastic. It also tastes great fresh from the garden with no cooking. Sweet and a bit of a broccoli-like bitterness. I love vegetables that have a real flavor!

So I picked a big bunch and cooked it up. I love the combination of potatoes, garlic and kale. Unfortunately, the result was mealy and flavorless. Oh well. I'm wondering if it was the way I cooked it or if the kale just isn't good anymore. It did get well down into the single digits (about 7*F) this winter and has been a long, cold and snowy one.

My recipe was to blanch the kale for 4 minutes, boil potatoes til tender, saute spring onions and garlic in butter and olive oil, then add kale and potatoes and saute about 3 or 4 minutes. I think this would be a really good recipe with fall kale, but was lousy with late winter kale.

I think I'll give the kale another try with a very quick stir fry (with garlic and thyme?) or even try it uncooked in a salad.




Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

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first kale harvest

I'm so pleased to get a good harvest of kale. Midsummer, my kale leaves were filled with holes from the green caterpillars of the white cabbage butterfly. To holey for me to eat. I've had the plants covered with garden fabric since them. Now the leaves are very nice. I sauteed them with garlic, then added water and blanched about 5 minutes. Very tasty. I've read they are sweeter after a frost so I'm looking forward to eating the rest of the leaves this winter.

The variety is called Dinosaur Kale. Seeds were from Seeds of Change.

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harvests from my vegetable gardens
Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)

kale seedlings

I planted three types of kale seeds. They are developing nice second leaves now. Each look different. Clockwise from top left: Winterbor, Red Russian, Tuscan and another shot of Red Russian.

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Kale (Brassica oleracea, Acephala Group)