(no subject)

[freyakitten]

This afternoon, I managed to spend some time in my garden. The large raised bed is now slightly more full due to the fine compost, cow manure, and gypsum I dug in, and the dirt has had seedlings and bulbs planted.

If I somehow manage to remember to water them regularly, there shall at some point, be:

• beetroot
• leeks
• garlic
• pretty-coloured kale

They're in the large bed that last held broad beans, which is good for they all like nitrogen, as well as each other. I must remember to put in a winter crop of peas somewhere on ANZAC Day. And I need to find something that'll cope with the semi-shade of the bed nearest the fence bed.

For persons who don't read vegetable gardening books as obsessively as I do, kale is to cabbage something like what radicchio is to lettuce. Same family, acquired taste. Even if I decide to not acquire the taste, the seedlings I got are supposed to turn out with pink or red new growth, instead of being purely greyish-bluey-dark-green. At least, I think that's what the tag was describing. The lady who served me seemed to think the pink bits were flowers, but kale only has flowers when, like lettuce, it has bolted and is no longer potentially tasty. The pink bits looked to me king of like the red bits of poinsettia. Mind you, she also thought that they weren't edible in any colour. Strange for a seedling found in the midst of other vegetable seedlings. Maybe she doesn't read the same books as I do.

One of these days I have to find me some Fat Hen or King Henry (both pre-spinach European greens). I've only seen them sold as produce in the Ventral Markets once (yay for Queen of Green), and have never seen seedlings or seeds. Tasty things, apparently easy to grow, and higher in nutritional value than spinach.

Comments

[kriste]

I have a good recipe for kale with polish smoked sausage and bacon. It is available in Adelaide, as my mum used to get it from somewhere occasionally.

As for fat hen/king henry, I am supposed to be growing some from seed as of last week. I also know where to purchase seed, but don't know if there are problems with quarantine etc if I send them over ...

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

It turns up occasionally at Wilsons' Organics, across the road from the Ventral Markets. There are a lot of semi-obscure things that turn up there, that you cannot find in the markets. For example, capsicums in varieties other than bell pepper and banana.

And I've found a source for Fat Hen, but I'll have to order it: http://www.edenseeds.com.au/content/seeditem.asp?id=890
These guys have a small display in Wilsons', but it doesn't include everything, as it is a very small store. I must think of several more things I want to order at the same time.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Is kale the same thing as "silverbeet", as it's known here in Melb? If so, we've had success with the colorued versions. I've also found that home-grown silverbeet is far less bitter than the stuff the shops sell.

All we have on the go at present is one bed containing rocket (mmmm, I LOVE rocket) and purple cauliflowers, plus one courgette plant that's still grimly hanging on and producing. We're going to leave everything for now because in about eight weeks' time we're completely reconfiguring the back garden - moving the chicken pen to where the vegetable beds are (and enclosing it completely this time, since I'm sick of chasing pigeons away from the chook-food all the time) and changing the current chicken-pen back into a veg garden. And this time around I get to plan the garden, yayyy!

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

Kale is a brassica, a non-heading cabbage, basically, and silverbeet is in the same family as beetroot.

This looks like what was on the label: http://www.thegardenhelper.com/kalepix.html
Here's the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale

Cavalho Nero is the variety I recognise - it's easily available from the Diggers' Club, and it's the one my preferred organic store stocks.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Ahh, thankee! BTW - good choice of music. I LOVE that band...

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

Also, I looked it up, and although it's a good analogy, radicchio is an endive/chicory, not a lettuce.

[penguin2.livejournal.com]

Radicchio rocks. It's also one of the great gas-producers when eaten. Probably something to do with all those bitter-taste-producing toxins :P