Kale is one of those vegetables you’re going to want to grow, that’s because you can harvest it when there are not many other vegetables to cut. However, you can also harvest it in mid to late summer.

Kale has become a trendy vegetable. With innovative ways to eat it. One way is to eat raw kale chopped salad…delicious. It can also be eaten in soups… raw in salads… or steamed and eaten with a casserole… even as chips!

Another tasty way to eat kale is…cooked leftover kale… it’s great as ‘Bubble and Squeak’. That’s cold potato mixed with kale and fried in minimal oil in small cakes. Season with salt and pepper. Eat with fried bacon. Delicious!

So how do you grow this superfood?

If you’re growing from seed sow the seeds 10mm deep. Sow in rows 300mm apart. Or alternatively, sow the seeds in pots…When the seedlings have 5-6 leaves, then you can transplant them. Plant the seedlings 450mm apart. This leaves room for the kales leaves to grow freely. Try to plant the Kale in a sunny spot.

You can also grow kale plants in large pots, fill the pot with good quality compost. or you can use topsoil and compost mixed. As the plants start to grow you need to fertilize with blood and bone meal. Also, you can add chicken pellets.

As the plants get bigger we add lawn cuttings around your plants. This acts as a mulch and it helps to retain water in the soil. And it eliminates the need for weeding!

You may want to consider netting your plants. That’s building a frame over the plants and spreading a net over it. You can buy an inexpensive net online. Netting will stop pigeons from stripping your plants. And will also stop the Cabbage White butterfly laying eggs on your kale. The eggs hatch into caterpillars which will devour kale.

You can start harvesting your kale from October onwards. Though summer grown kale can be picked from July and August.

Kale, with its deep green leaves, is one of the healthiest vegetables around.

It’s a superfood packed full of antioxidants. It’s important for us to eat foods high in antioxidants. That’s because these antioxidants combat free radicals that attack our body cells. When our body cells get broken down then we become vulnerable to disease. So adding kale to our diet is a great idea.