Tending the Garden: Kale #2

Today I was able to get into the gardens for the first time in a week. Last Saturday I'd picked the first of our kale, which is a new crop for us this year. I'd fully intended to get back to the garden last Sunday to pick the rest of it, but, of course, here in Iowa wait a few minutes and the weather will change. And it did...starting last Sunday and continuing through most of the week, we ended up with 4 inches of rain total. Way too wet in the gardens to do anything but sink in.....so both the weeds and the kale had lots of time to grow!

I definitely can see what the advantages are to having raised garden beds. Not only can you reduce weeds, but if you have a week of wet weather, you can still harvest your crops when they need it. Maybe someday, for a few crops anyway, I'll try my hand at raised gardens.

It really turned out to be nice kale. We planted Dwarf Siberian kale, not knowing anything about kale on how to grow, etc. I've been impressed so far. It's producing well so far, and while I've heard lots of people say that kale will grow straight through until frost, I'm still waiting to see how it will do if we have drought-like conditions. Our soil has a lot of clay in it, and while we've improved it over the years with organic material tilled in....it is still a clay-based soil and that can get rock-hard in a drought. I also am thinking about trying some of the full-sized varieties....if you have a favorite, please share what it is. :)

I ended up with 4 large dishpans overflowing with the kale, and while I did use some tonight for dinner in a kale slaw, I still ended up with 8 pretty full freezer quart bags. Definitely takes some time to de-rib all the large leaves that had too much time to grow this week.....will be watching closer and pick if I think it's going to be wet for a few days in a row.