Hooray! Things are growing. Here is the kale I have harvested for my Eat-All Greens project. (More on that in a second.) Also, raspberries from my bushes. I'm beginning to realize that you don't really grow raspberries, you instead host the plant and try to keep it from completely taking over.
I bought Carol Deppe's The Tao of Vegetable Gardening because I enjoyed her first book, The Resilient Gardener, I think she's an important gardening person in Oregon and also because she has a method to increase the amount of greens you grow and use. I love greens.
Following (somewhat) her directions, I planted the kale seed I had collected last fall. Kale emerged. I harvested it, started water to boil and arranged my kale on a cutting board, ready to boil briefly, as instructed. After the water boiled and I added the kale to the pot, I noticed a caterpillar hanging out on the cutting board. He went into the compost bin.
I drained the kale and was shaking it around in the pot, getting the extra water out, when what did I see but a boiled caterpillar. "Eek!" said I, and fished it out. Suspicious, I shook the kale some more and "Eek!" another one. At that point, I thought it best to carefully comb through the kale to ensure I found any little critters that might have been along for the ride. I found many, which were collected in the sink, as pictured here.
My finished project, happily caterpillar-free.
And now I know to check my greens carefully before boiling.
2 comments:
Wow, that's a lot of caterpillars! Your kale is so pretty. Was it as tasty as it looked? Raspberries and blackberries are related, aren't they? If so, I'm not terribly surprised to learn that the raspberry bush is a difficult plant to control.
I especially love that you grew them from your own seeds. Very Little Red Hen of you in the very best way. Can't wait to hear all about your greens eating. July did not start with such greenery!
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