Raspberries and kale from the garden.

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.