Kale certainly is the darling vegetable of the health conscious folks. Juice it! Make chips of it! Massage it for salads! Steam it! Bake it! Make soup!

I love it, not just because I’m sold on its health benefits and earthy iron-y taste, but because it is another surprising vegetable to grow.

The photo above is from a day last fall, probably October-ish, when I planted kale and chard. This kale is called Nero and grows quite tall. It looks a bit like a palm tree and has flat dark green long leaves. To harvest, you pluck the bottom leaves and it keeps growing up.

Today I was watering the Urban Farm (by hand, using harvested water from one of our 4 rain barrels), and noticed that new leaves were springing from the stalk where the old leaves were picked.

Awesome! More kale for us! Since I like to harvest salad greens daily, I’m happy for the bounty.

So far I have had the most success with green leafy veg. All sorts of lettuce, red romaine, mixed greens, mâché, kale, spinach, collards, mustard, leafy things have grown well and provided not just salads, but satisfaction.

Tomorrow, I will putter in the garden and harvest Monday’s lunch. Next weekend is when we can begin to plant the first spring seeds so I need to start planning and organizing. Time to put the garden planner to work!