The kale plants in the gardens are producing too much, and a lot of the leaves are ending up in the compost, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing
0:00 Can’t keep up with kale
0:43 A good crop to grow
2:16 An earlier crop of one variety
3:48 Too much kale
4:55 Discarding lots
6:03 Some data
7:26 Why so productive?
9:36 It is ok to not harvest everything
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36 Comments
My original kale this year suffered from slugs, then whitefly (which finished them off). Replacement plantings later got hit by caterpillars (like all of my brassicas) – only the Cavallo Nero survived, no other types. The slugs are still hanging about, it's the tiny ones that are hitting mainly the Chinese Leaf which I've just left now as sacrifice to protect the other brassicas.
Thank you so much. I really love your garden videos and your whole project there. I always feel encouraged by everything you do. Kale is amazingly dependable, and I feel it's aesthetically pleasing too, especially in the middle of winter. We get something yummy to eat, the compost bin wins, and my hens do too. As a point about the summer, I found that pest insects were down this year, making life easier, and we didn't get cabbage white until the first week of August. Do you think a cold spring actually helped us all out a bit?
A dairy cow or a few goats would relish all those mature leaves, turn them into valuable milk, and speed-compost the residue for you!
My ducks got into my garden over winter, and feasted on the kale leaves. But they lay many huge eggs, much better than hens who take the winter off.
Gardens were never meant to be isolated from livestock.
I grew too much Kale too.
Did you add lime to your beds before transplanting the seedlings?
Thanks for an interesting video.
Vates Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale is an excellent green here in north Florida. Pests and heat and summer rain usually destroys mine in June or July. It can start earlier and remains edible longer than any other leaf green. It markets well, and grows much faster than dinosaur kale. There are tiny orange crowned warblers that spend winter in my garden. It's not until after they migrate that I begin to have issues with flea beetles.
Loved this video! All of your videos, actually. I just love your experiments and data collection; you're so good at evaluating results and weighing pros and cons objectively and with an open mind that doesn't sway to one or the other side. Thank you for sharing all of your experiences!
Now for my kale suggestion – wash and dry, de-stem, throw them on a cookie sheet to freeze (not in a single layer is fine), and put them in ziploc bags after frozen. They will crunch down into a finer powder when frozen, and take up very little space. They make a fantastic nutrient dense addition to smoothies, soups, etc.!
Use them in smoothies
Consider frog ponds for slug control, Slug damage goes to 5-10% for me once the frogs and toads show up.
If you want more people to eat them perhaps it's worth growing some different varieties. Kale comes in all sorts of colours. In Cumbria England we have a great climate for it too and have 10 varieties. I would recommend Red Ruble, White and Purple Peacock and Emerald Ice for some interestingly coloured cultivars, and maybe Kalettes for a March/April crop.
Make kale chips, olive oil, salt, pepper, granulated garlic, bake in oven😊
I'm so happy this channel is still running. What a wonderful resource of knowledge and trials for others to learn from and apply to their own gardens! ❤️
You've gotten several suggestions for using up the over abundance of kale but I'd like to add add one more. When I have too much collards or kale, I remove the ribs and freeze the leaves. Because of the thawed texture, i only use it in soups, but i also freeze the ribs separately and use them in casseroles.
An interesting thing is that if the roots are left behind, the plant can come back the next year. I have a 2nd year kale right now and I've had a 3 year collards in the past.
I hope this is helpful to you and I wish you success in any cooking experiments!
Wake up babe new Bruce vid dropped
I experienced the same in my garden this year. Greatly because of you, I started to triple up in liquid fertilizer and BOOOM, everything exploded in growth. I have now so much 2 m high kale and are eating it every second day… everybody is so in love with the nutrients of these greens, they seem to have something that is missing in supermarket-vegetables. But I started to get bored of the kale now…. a nice new thing I learned from the Toscana in Italy is: (White) beans and kale soup, then use polenta to make a potato-smash like dish. Its an very easy lunch and next day: fry it with oil in a pan. maybe cheese on top. its good!
Funny how different needs and or perceptions are. We cannot grow enough kale for the two of us, I don‘t have that much space, but use it in salads – red russian and cavolo nero – the tougher kale leaves in soups and stews and we make a lot of kale chips.
I completely neglected my kale this year and it's still producing like mad. Maybe it likes La Nina years.
👍😊
Would love to see you experiment with perennial kale varieties. Can't harvest them in time? No problem, just leave them in, and pick the leaves at your leisure. The plants will continue to produce even after going to seed.
I love your videos. Keep them comming! 🙂
This year has been the worst for kale-or any leafy greens for me. Slugs were especially bad though it was hot and dry for months (zone 8 BC). I have some babies in a starter box but at only 4 inches tall I'm afraid to put them out as they'll be totalled by the slugs. Never in my 20+ yrs growing here have I been without kale, or other edible greens. I don't usually choose Winterbor as it is hard to see eggs etc on the leaves and really tough on my digestion- so like the flatter-leafed kale which are much more tender…which makes them a magnets for bugs and slugs! Wish there was a surefire chemical-free animal-free way to control the slugs as even with diligence I've just given up this week…and no kale in the winter…never thought that could happen especially since it is normally a staple…that and potatoes didn't make it this year 🙁
kale kinda tastes like pee so it makes sense that adding pee to the soil helped the kale
A like and a comment, thanks for sharing your video's and insights 👍
Kale an inferior crop? Don't mention that to the Dutch 😂! Boerenkoolstamp (farmer's mash) is pretty much our national dish, served with a thick gravy and a smoked sausage. Colcannon is an Irish dish that's similar. Traditionally in the Netherlands (curly) kale isn't harvested until the first frost so it tastes sweeter. It will stand the winter like a champ, even with a full head of leaves, but until the warmth of early spring you won't get much growth. We harvest a full head as needed, so you'll be happy with how many plants you have. Next to a mash, I love creamed kale (alternative to spinach) with some pasta. Also, kale salads are nice. The trick is to massage the leaves for 5-10 minutes with an acid like lemon juice. This breaks up kale's structure, making it much less tough.
Always love your videos!
Hows that garden you planned with no outside inputs going?
I made sauerkraut out of the excess kale
Stir frys and curries are a great way to use up a lot of kale.
I think your missing out on some of the best tasting varieties, the blue/purple smooth leaf ones are really nice (Dazzling Blue would be an example) and the curly leaf dark purple ones.
Chickens. Chickens love the stuff.
I like to juice my extra greens. I have an auger or masticating type juicer. I'll add a beet, apple, or carrot, even celery and maybe a piece of ginger and use the pulp in the compost.
Great video 🙂 We have a lot of Kale too but sow it later. BTW we don't eat the bottom leaves. We leave them on and eat the lighter green leaves as they are more tender and seem to taste better..
Cabbage aphid is total killer of kale in my location. There is more white fly than green leaves. The same goes for cabbage. Only way to grow cabbage for me is to sow in february and only very early varieties, that are harvested before aphids arrive (July).
How we eat kale in Holland: after harvesting and cleaning the leaves you freeze them in a big plastic bag. Then you crush them up. Remove big stems. You boil sliced potatoes with on top loads of crushed kale. One pan dish! Bit of salt. Mash it all when cooked (add some milk or coconut cream/santen). Eat with sausages or meatballs. Some extra butter on top is also delicious.
Remove center rib, chop, then pressure can in quarter pint jars. One jar can go into chili or spaghetti sauce where it pretty much disappears, but adds nutrition.
Funny garden story – this past spring we had what we thought were some very robust cucumber plants growing in our garden. Makes sense because we planted cucumbers. As the season progressed, they started getting really big, with huge yellow flowers. Around July the flowers started turning into pumpkins! I then recalled throwing our old pumpkins into the compost pile in the fall. Now my garden is a mess and i have about 30 pumpkins i don't know what to do with.
Do you dehydrate? I love taking Kale and making Kale Chips! AND my neighbors love it as well!
My chickens are loving all the kale and cabbage leaves.
i love your videos. they r just what i need