Harvesting Kale and Preserving it for later use

Growing kale is easy.

I started out with 9 plants.

I'm down to six now because I had to weed.

That's fine.

Now, the remaining kale plants are growing well.

I've also started a lot of kale seeds to use for their tender leaves in salad and for the fall kale plants.

Today, I began the process of preserving.

The dehydrated kale chips never last long enough to keep.

They are usually gone in a day!

This morning, I cut a pile of leaves. from the kale plants.

They were beautiful, too!

 

I brought them in the house, and cut them into thirds or fourths, depending on the size of the leaves. I put them in my sauce pan and brought them to a boil.

I boiled the kale leaves for 45 minutes.

There are some chemicals in the larger leaves that can cause kidney stones,

so you want to precook these leaves before you eat them.

My neighbor boils her kale for 45 minutes.

I do the same.

I let the kale cool.

I drained the kale and wadded it it up into two balls.

I put them on a plate in the freezer.

After they were frozen,

they joined the other two

kale balls in a bag in the freezer.

One day, they will go into soup or a veggie mixture.

For those of us who used to be non-gardeners, you can buy kale in the grocery store 

and do the same thing.

Happy Kaling!!