Friday, June 08, 2007

The not-so-daily lupine, among other things



Okay, I broke my promise. But, yesterday evening was windy and threatening stormy weather, which thankfully never happened here, but it was not the ideal lupine picture taking weather. So today I give you lupines against the early evening sun. Early evening is relative here, last light does not disappear until about 11 pm these days.



This is my first ever spring planting of kale. I'd always heard kale is more of a fall vegetable, something to be planted in late summer; it needs a frost to not taste bitter. But I decided to try it when I planted lettuce and other greens in April. From what I can tell, we probably have the ideal climate for growing kale in the spring here. We're still getting nighttime lows in the 30's. I harvested a bunch of the big leaves tonight, to saute with bacon (yum), along with some spinach, but there are still enough leaves for another harvest or two. And it was not bitter at all. I'm posting about the meal at my other blog.

Hoping to do some big gardening tomorrow; The Hermit is heading out for a week long business road trip, with a side trip to see his parents, so I'll have my hands full here. But I'll keep in touch.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder about kale and frost. At my son's village in Kenya (which is about 10 miles from the equator) kale is a staple food (and pretty tasty). But there is no way they are going to have a frost to keep it from tasting bitter. Maybe it's a different plant with the same name. My son tried growing some kale, but apparently he let it get too tall and lanky (also his landlord let a cow into his yard and the cow ate his whole crop).

gtr said...

Mmmm, I LOVE kale. I definitely plant it in the spring for early harvest and even in summer for late fall harvest. We usually steam it, eat it plain... doesn't seem bitter to me, really. But we are pretty far north of you, I guess.

Your garden looks great! Ours is barely sprouting...