The Scots call Kale “Cattle Fodder”! - I think its a superfood.

The Scots might call Kale “Cattle Fodder”! but it’s my favourite “grow myself” vegetable. Here’s why:

Fantastic off season food

This is my Kale bed, in August last year

I planted them in April last year and have been eating them since September, all through autumn, and all winter, right up until this week.

They are amazingly easy to grow, trouble free (once they are high enough to get away from slugs) and the best value plants in my vegetable garden. Chopped kale leaves in my local supermarket are shockingly expensive – over a pound for half a kilo!

Kale gives you more

The bright green side shoots are the flowers
 they are a bit like sprouting broccoli

After the first flush of new spring leaves the Kale will try to flower. The flower erupts from the top of the plant. Snap this off and eat it. Yum. These flower sprouts are delicious.
The flowers look similar to green sprouting broccoli.  
A few weeks after eating the top flower the plants will sprout a load more flowers from the sides between the leaves. I take the plants out of the ground when these flowers are finished, usually by mid April.

Lots of food from very little space

I've just planted out 28 plants for the coming year. It sounds a lot, but this winter I could have eaten at least twice as much kale as I was growing.

Here they are all planted.

One row of large curly kale and two rows of Italian black Kale. Planted about 25cm apart in three staggered rows. Lots of food in very little space. 

all sitting in a little puddle! Bless

Cheap and easy

I planted these from seed in the middle of January and kept them near the windowsill in my kitchen. As soon as they had grown two real leaves I moved them into bigger pots and seed trays and put them out into the greenhouse for a few weeks.

This year is the last year I follow this traditional method. It’s too time consuming. Seed has become so reliable that I can plant one seed directly into small pots and nearly all of them will come through.

I've never liked the cell seed trays that are all joined together. The small plants are hard to get out without disturbing the roots and so suffer when putting them into the ground.

Tapping little plants out of small pots is much easier, the roots are less stressed and so they do better when planted out.

In seed tray cells - I don't like these as the baby
plants get stressed when pushed out

baby plants in little pots seem to grow on better and
suffer less stress when planted in the ground

If you don't have the time or desire to do this you can easily buy baby plants in most garden centres or DIY garden departments from the middle of March and they are very cheap when they are small.

Easy to plant out

The soil was dug over and weeded a week or so ago and I added some organic seaweed pellets to the soil. Kale belongs to the Brassica family and are hungry plants (thats why they are so good for you) This extra feed will make sure there are enough trace minerals, nitrogen, phosphate and potassium in the soil for a good crop.

Here’s the planting sequence

1. Pop out of pot or tray

This little plant has been pushed out of a cell tray

2. Dig small hole slightly deeper than the plant root ball

The two little heart shaped side leaves are the first leaves
and will drop off as soon as the plant is established

3. Fill the hole with soil and a little the over the top of the soil from the pot. Use your fists and push the whole root ball firmly into the soil so it moves down into a little depression.

Yay - out in the real world!

4.Shuffle around the plant pushing down with heels to create a well around the plant and compact the soil slightly. Kale are tall plants with big leaves and need to root in firm soil to prevent them rocking about in the wind. 

Yes those are my wellies

5. Fill the depressions with water (old gardeners call this puddling in) and away they will go!

Climate change is effecting everything in the garden

First the good news

OMG - my tulips are flowering on April 2nd.

I just love spring!  I planted these lovely Yellow-with-a-bit-of-Red tulips last year. This means the wonderful early and cheerful burst of yellow flowers that starts with crocus and daffodils, will continue that little bit longer. Hooray.

Now the bad news

The local government that provides my vegetable garden has decided to meter our water. First they measured the amount of water the allotment gardens use, then they banned using a hosepipe for watering. Now we have push button standpipes instead of taps. These mean we gardeners have to stand and push the button in to fill our buckets and watering cans. These taps will be locked in drought conditions.

Seeing these taps is such a sad day in a country where it rains so much! The now private water companies have not invested in ways of storing enough of the free rain to make this unnecessary.

How things are

In my garden I have 14 raised beds, all narrow and long. I can reach across all of the bed from the path and  I don’t need to stand on the soil.

Over the years that I've gardened here, the soil level  in my beds has risen between 4 and 6 inches.

I like this way of gardening. The soil stays open as its not compacted by my boots and I don’t need to dig with a spade.

Instead I can turn the soil easily with a fork. This is much better for the worms (and my back) and doesn't create a break with the subsoil at spade depth (called a pan).

The one downside of gardening like this is that the top few inches and the bed edges dry out very quickly so small plants and seedlings need to be watered more often than with other ways of cultivating the soil.

All change

Now I have to carry my water its harder and slower work. I need to change to a way of gardening that conserves more water otherwise I will spend all my time walking back and fore to the tap.
The first thing to do are:

• Add more organic matter to the soil. The more organic matter contained in the soil, the more it stores water, so my first job is too add loads more compost to the soil. Luckily I was given enough garden waste to make two huge composts last summer. 

Digging out compost from last years now ready pile

• Reduce bed edge evaporation.  I'm removing every other path, which will half the amount of the bed edges and reduce the amount of  dry edges.

First side planks removed and path dug through

• Reduce wind evaporation. I’m going back to the traditional humped bed where the soil at the edge of the bed is more or less the same height as the path and the bed rises towards the middle. This will keep the wind from drying out the soil.

Compost added and height equalised -

Thats my first two beds combined, although I  still have a bit of work to do. The last third needs turning over and I will add a few more loads of compost. Then a good rake and with luck, some rain and it'll be ready for planting.
As soon as its warm enough I'll plant French beans but while I wait for the summer to arrive, I'll plant some quick salad crops.