K is For Kale

source: wikipedia

I apologise for this post being so late. I spent the whole day in the garden planting seeds, transplanting seedlings including kale, weeding and watering different sections of the garden.

I enjoy blogging and would have loved to hang out with you but playing outdoors on a sunny but cool Autumn day won out. And it did feel like playing, sorry:)

About kale: I want to grow different varieties, but so far I've only grown the curly leaf variety.

I still have May to plant kale seeds for this season though, so I have time to look for lacinato/dinosaur kalewhich has tall and narrow leaves.

I've never grown/eaten it before, but I understand it has a slightly sweeter and more delicate taste than the curly kale.

I also want to grow redbor kale, if I can find it. I looked it up online when I first heard of it and it's beautiful, with curly, dark red leaves that look like they are deep purple. It's apparently sweet and mild too, but even if we don't fall in love with the taste, I want those colourful leaves in my garden.

Growing kale

I've found kale to be one of the easiest vegetables to grow in my garden in Phokeng. It became my default brassica when cabbage crop after crop failed or brought a poor harvest. By contrast I found kale to be more resilient and less prone to damage from pests and diseases.

Site selection: My biggest challenge was making sure that the crop is sufficiently cool and in consideration of our relatively hot semi-arid climate, I plant it under the trees around the property. That keeps it mostly in the shade, but it doesn't seem to mind.

Soil preparation: I read that kale doesn't like too rich soil, but that's not a problem for me, as it has to compete with trees for nutrients. However, I do keep the soil well-composted.


The planting process: Planting the seeds involves inserting them a centimeter and half (½ in) deep into the soil, then watering the patch. I then keep the area moist until the seedlings break through
.

Caring for the plant: From then onwards I give the patch a good soaking every second day until each seedling had five or six leaves.

Today I thinned the seedlings moving them around under various trees so that there is approximately 45cm (18in) between the plants in the beds. After this, I only need to water them once or twice a week and mulch the beds to help the kale and its companion retain moisture.


Harvesting: I've found that kale tastes best for us when the leaves are still young. I start harvesting the leaves when they are around 10-15cm (4-6in) long. When I cut, make sure to leave the small leaf growing in the centre, so that the leaves can grow again.

I usually harvest kale within the day that I'm going to use it, so I don't store it long. But I understand that you can keep it in the refridgerator for a couple of days. 

Serving suggestions: Don't forget to cut off the veins when you wash your kale and prepare it to cook or make a salad.

My family loves a  kale and potato mash-up. Basically, we boil potatoes with a medium onion, and when it's half-way cooked, we put in fresh, shedded kale leaves and boil them both until they are soft. A spoonful of low-fat margarine, a dash of salt and they are happy to eat this with any meat or fish dish and a green salad.

We also include kale in most of our stir-fries, coupling it with julienned carrots, thinly sliced onions and robot peppers, broccoli and whatever fresh vegetables we have on hand.

For an extra dish that can go with most meals that involve rice, we just shred it, boil it until all the water is drained and fry it with a bit of oil, add a bit of salt and cayenne pepper and we're good to go.

You can also use this recipe for broccoli and cauliflower leaves, which we slice a bit more thinly and boil longer before frying. They taste like combination of cabbage and spinach.

OK. Did I mention we like brassicas? Cos we really do:)

E is For Eggplant (also called Aubergine /Brinjal)

Eggplant from my 2013 crop

By now you might have gathered that I really enjoy gardening and cooking what I grow. My nephew and I have a lot of fun in the kitchen experimenting with food where I try out new recipes on familiar foods or introduce new-to-us vegetables and herbs to dishes.

In addition to using him and his friends as my food tasters (brave people!),  he also loves creating recipes for marinades and sauces using our garden herbs and bakes incredible-tasting pizzas. He's also our resident grill-master:-)


The one vegetable that we're battling to like as a family is eggplant. We've grilled it, fried it, baked it, used it in stews, covered it in batter to make it interesting... and well... while I enjoy it well enough, the family just tolerates it.

So we're seriously considering stopping to grow eggplant. I still have a few bushes from previous seasons but once they are spent, that's it.. we're done. Unless you guys can offer some serving suggestions that could work for my family. So please help:-)

P.S. This post is outside my theme for the AtoZ, as I'm not planting eggplant seeds this month (even if I wanted to, Autumn is not the time to plant eggplant).

How to grow eggplant

Eggplant grow easily in climates where summers are long and warm, so our semi-arid region where temperatures usually range from warm to extreme heat are ideal for  growing this vegetable. You can still grow varieties that mature quickly or grow them in containers if your summers are shorter, if you start out your seedlings inside weeks before Spring officially begins and have a way to keep the starts heated well enough to germinate.

Preparing the soil: Eggplant grows well in fertile, well-drained soil in a sunny area. Make sure that you have not previously grown eggplant/green peppers or tomatoes on that site for at least two years though, as these types of vegetables tend to be very unhappy if you do (I'm still suffering the consequences for ignoring that rule with my tomato crop, but that's the subject for another post).

I compost my clay soil with cow manure very thoroughly weeks before I plant eggplant, though I've never measured the pH to make sure it has the recommended 5.5 -6.5 pH.

The planting process: I tend to plant my seedlings directly into the soil. That works for me because of my climate, but it's not necessarily the recommended treatment for propagating eggplant in areas where there is a proper winter, complete with frost or even snow.

If your summers are short, start your seedlings indoors  six to nine weeks before your average last frost. Soak seeds overnight to encourage them to germinate and then sow them ¼ inch deep in flats or cell-type containers and then keep them warm. The seeds will sprout in seven to ten days.

Once the temperatures have warmed up enough outside,  you can then transplant them to chosen spot. I tend to grow eggplant as a short-term perennial (last 2-3 years), so I'm very careful to put them in an area I have no plans to use the next year or so.

Make sure that there is room for them to grow too (around 2-3 feet apart) as the more space they have, the more productive they'll be. I interplant my eggplant with lettuce, green beans and marigolds (I broadcast marigols everywhere in the garden!) to fill the spaces inbetween.

Plant care: Once the seedlings are secure in their place, I just water them thoroughly and regularly and try to keep them weed-free. In the years I've grown it, I haven't had to deal with pests, but I understand flea-beetles can be a very big issue.


Harvesting eggplant:  The first time I grew eggplant, I wondered how the emerging veggies were going to hold up in the relatively small bushes, but they did. To test for ripeness, press its skin. If the skin does not springs back, then it's ready for harvesting.

Serving suggestions: So..... Please share a recipe that will wow my family:-)