Photo: Great grandparents at their farm in Blandinsville, IL, with five of their six children .. my grandpa was yet a twinkle in grandma's eye. Stable boy and governess also pictured. Hodges farm, circa 1903-4

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

A New Garden Favorite

Not a new veggie .. just new to our family.  Kale is growing in abundance in our garden; getting picked sometimes twice a day.  I never knew how good it could taste .. and only associated it with the curly variety used as a food prop to pretty up restaurant plates.  I can think of many uses for this hardy green .. such as used in soups, stir-fries, sauteed  ... and even as a delicious topping on homemade pizza (which we've baked up twice this week).


About ready to be picked are our June strawberries .. they're just turning red and have been covered to keep the birds from having a field day.  Lettuce is growing and filling salad bowls .. along with radishes .. which have only had some success.   Some of our onions are not doing well .. and am not sure why .. could be from planting in the raised beds .. as we've never had problems other than them going missing from voles.  Speaking of the pesky creatures, here is a good link on trapping them   .  Looks easy enough to make the trap devices at home .. and will try it later this week.  So far I haven't noticed too much missing from the garden .. and I know the voles are out there.  Our raised beds lined with hardware cloth seem to be working.

7 comments:

Lynda said...

I just planted kale for a fall crop. I only knew of it as a garnish, too. But, from reading blogs I learned it's a pretty awesome green. I bought some at the Farmers Market and made kale chips and just loved them...so I'm putting it in the garden. My onions didn't do well this year either. My husband said onions are fickle...some years they're great, others not so good...he grows onions for commercial seed, so I'll take his word for it.

Sandy said...

That pizza looks delicious! I have enjoyed kale
for years and it seems to grow year round in
our garden. My favorite way to eat it is to
saute' it with red onions in a dab of olive
and sesame oil, rice vinegar and sea salt.
YUM!

Dani said...

Yummy - that looks good. Kale certainly seems to be a winner!

Corner Gardener Sue said...

What kind of kale is that? I'm thinking I've had something like that in salad mix seeds. I like my darker kale, and another kind I have has been a favorite of the green cabbage caterpillars.

I do enjoy fresh picked kale. I've eaten it fresh and cooked. Your pizza looks yummy!

Mr. H. said...

With all the rainy cool weather we have had this spring kale certainly was a good choice in greens. Pizza looks good.:)

Sissy said...

Have you ever tried kale chips? Toss kale with little olive oil and kosher salt and cook @ 400 till brown and crispy. Sooo good!!!
(love reading your blog today!)

Jim said...

Hi M&M ~~ It is nice that you can grow it. I am the only one in our family who eats kale. So the only place I get it is at a restaurant in the plate garnishing.

For a week we are the caretakers of two fig trees which are bearing fruit right now. The owner is on holiday visiting his grown children in another city.

He also is letting us pick his tomatoes which are bearing. We had two for supper tonight. Mrs. Jim put up seven jars of fig preseerves yesterday. We ate the small jar on toasted rolls this morning for our mid morning snack.
..