Growing Kale

Last summer was my first time growing kale and it turned out to be one of my new favorites. The seed variety that I tried was from Botanical Interests, called Premier Kale Blend. Over the years I’ve made several changes to what I grow and a lot of it has to do with what I get the most use out of. I don’t like to waste food. 

For instance, I love tomatoes but I have found that lately I am not as fond of them as I once was, and I end up with more than I need.

Growing kale has been amazing because I use all of it. At first it was a little overwhelming but once I learned how to blanch it to freeze for smoothies, it changed everything. The amazing part of blanching the leaves is that you can store it away in the freezer for months and shrinks down to become more manageable and easy to store. I filled up a 14 gallon Tupperware container with kale leaves and after blanching, the contents fit into two small one gallon ziplocs. After blanching the leaves for a couple minutes, they should be dried with a towel and placed on a cookie sheet to freeze for a few hours before placing them into separate bags. I am definitely growing more of this variety this coming spring. This seed packet comes as a mixture so you don’t know what you’re going to get. I think that was the only down side of it, but I was happy with the varieties that it produced and the results and its on my list again for spring.