Filed under: Gardening, Greens, Winter Garden | Tags: collards, green kale, kale, pacific northwest gardening, pacific northwest winter gardening, red kale, taste-testing greens, winter greens
In the Pacific Northwest, growing a wide variety of greens in your home garden year-round is very easy. Most gardeners’ knowledge of greens extends to just lettuce for salads. I enjoy fresh lettuce from my garden through the summer and early fall but my taste for greens extends beyond that. I grow kale and collards in my garden because these plants easily tolerate the mild Northwest winters. They also thrive during a cool June as I wait for other vegetables to come up. Here it is end of June 2010 and I am still eating from the green kale, red kale as well as the collards I planted in August 2009. I’m not planning to pull up the plants until sometime in July when I have other fresh greens to eat from the garden.
Most of my friends don’t dabble in greens in their garden because they don’t know how to cook them. Also, they don’t know if they will like the taste. My suggestion is to buy some of the greens they are thinking of growing in the store before committing garden space and seeds to the endeavor. You can then cook up the following recipe for a quick taste test of the green in question:
- Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet.
- Cut up 1 onion and place in skillet.
- Add 1 tablespoon minced garlic, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper.
- Heat on high until the onion is translucent and other ingredients are well-mixed.
- Add 2 cups of chopped greens and 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes. Turn heat off and let sit 10 minutes. Serve.
Be forewarned that greens from the store are entirely different than those you will grow yourself. The store greens will be tougher and more bitter. For example, store-bought collards were always fairly unappealing to me unless I threw them into a stew. However, fresh collards are tender with a more delicate taste. I enjoy eating them in salad.
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