Preserving Kale

Kale is a great, easy veggie to grow in any garden and it's easy to preserve.  I like a flat leaf kale for preserving.  This year I grew purple leaf kale, as well as a curly leaf for fresh eating.

Before you start ... wash out the sink and get your equipment read.  Large pot, metal colander, slotted spoon, towels, ziplock baggies and sharpie.

Here are the steps for processing kale:

1. Wash and trim.  I harvest when the kale is not too big, so the ribs aren't very tough and I leave them in.  But you can trim the ribs out.

2.  Rinse again after you trim it.  Get all the dirt and bugs off.

3. Bring a pot of water to bowl and place a colander in the pot.

4. Add a couple handfuls of kale to the bowling water and push down with a spoon to submerge.  Set timer to 2 minutes.

5. While it boils, fill the sink with cold water and ice.

6. When 2 minutes are up, dump the kale into the cold water.  Return colander to boiling water and add a couple handfuls of kale.  Set timer to 2 minutes. 

7.  Scoop the blanched kale out of the sink and put on towels to drain.

8. Repeat until all the kale is blanched and draining.  You don't have to press the water out - it's ok if it's wet when you freeze it.

9.  Label the ziplock baggies.  I label all containers with what is in inside and the year I processed it.

10.  Grab a handful of blanched kale and place in a baggie.  I do one big handful per baggie.  Seal and stack.  Put in freezer.

I've kept the kale in the freezer for a year and it's still good.  Add to soups and stews all winter long.  And the final step is to give the leftovers to the chickens.

And so it begins

I don't remember a time when I didn't garden.  As a child, I remember walking barefoot in my parent's garden after they tilled.  I remember planting seeds without knowing what I was planting.

In college, at my first apartment, I planted a tomato in the landscaping strip.  I did it without asking for permission.  No one said a word.  I got a nice crop of tomatoes and made salsa that year.  Then in the first house I rented, I planted tomatoes and green bell peppers.  Again, without permission.

Gardening makes me feel hopeful.  Harvesting makes me feel secure.

Another bonus, when my daughter was young I let her help as much or as little as she wanted.  She ate sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes off the vine.  She dug carrots.  She packed veggies for canning.  She was never picky about veggies and I think gardening and canning are part of the reason why.  

Now I have a new garden.  New extremely fertile soil.

It's early March in the Pacific Northwest.  There is still a chance of frost (even snow) plus warmer days. I planted peas, arugula, radishes, broccoli, romaine lettuce and beets.  Everything but the peas are under portable green houses.

I'm a little sore

 All that soil had to be moved, one wheelbarrow load at a time, into the garden beds.  

Shovel 10 scoops in to wheelbarrow.  Push into garden. Dump over the raised bed.  Lift wheelbarrow to get all the soil out.  Repeat.  Then smooth out with a rake.  Do it all again.  It took 3 days, and 24 ibuprophen, for me and Jeremy to fill the boxes all the way up.

Now we let it settle, get some rain on it.  Planting will start the beginning of March.

Holy Dirt Batman!

 15 yards!  That is a lot of soil. Steaming, smelly soil. Moving into the garden beds is going to be a bit of a challenge.

New Garden

 About 5 years ago, we planted apples trees at our cabin.  Here in Packwood we have hundreds of elk that call the Cowlitz River valley home.  A herd of 30 walk through our yard almost daily.  If you know anything about elk, they graze indiscriminately.  If they bite into something they don't like, they pull it up and leave it dead on the ground.  Pretty much nothing of the landscape or garden nature can survive if the elk can grab it.  So, when we planted the apples we added a 6 foot tall fence around the trees to keep the elk out.

Last year was the first year we got apples.  It was exciting to harvest.  Since there were just a few from each tree and each tree is a different kind, I opted to make apple sauce.  I got a dozen pints.  

When we decided to move here permanently, I knew we'd need to expand the "orchard" to make room for a garden.

Our property is in the river basin.  Our soils are sand and rock with little organic matter.  Very well draining, but completely dry in the summer. I added a lot of soil to the apple tree pits. The first year I had to water daily.  So, I knew raised beds were required.

We decided on a "comb" design that maximized garden space but allowed me to reach the middle areas from all sides.  We also wanted a flower bed across the front of the garden.  

First we moved the fence and made the area bigger.  Then Jeremy built the raised beds in the garden area.  To kill the ground cover, I added a layer of cardboard boxes.  Since we moved here, we had lots of moving boxes to use.  

Two days after we built the beds, it snowed - a lot.  The storm knocked out power to many in the region.  Friends of mine were without electricity for days.  Thankfully, we only had hours of outage and we have a wood burning stove to keep the cabin warm and to cook on (if needed).  But it was a good reminder that gardening at the base of Mt Rainier needs to wait until March.