Today after my jog, I stopped off at the garden, looked it over, and decided the collards and kale really aren't growing anymore, so it's time to harvest what's left and pull the plants. We had a couple of hard freezes the last few weeks, and that is supposed to sweeten them up. It appears to be the case as confirmed by my nibbles during harvest. Here's a picture of the collards after one frosty night last week:
Today I cut off all the rest of the leaves, de-stemmed them, stuffed them into freezer bags, and put them in the downstairs freezer. Here's a picture of the freezer:
This is collards, broccoli leaves, cauliflower leaves, and brussels sprouts leaves (they all look like collards); brussels sprouts are in the door (not shown). This is pretty easy to do. As I've mentioned in previous posts, it will be even easier to cook them up, because if you crinkle them with your hands, immediately after taking them out of the freezer, they crumble into small pieces--that is, no chopping! How easy is that?
These are so economical! If I use one bag a week in soup, I think I've got several months worth of greens in the freezer! Dang, we only paid about $10 for all these plants and they give us greens for at least 6 months of the year.
The kale is good enough to eat raw on salads, so I don't usually freeze it. I harvested two big bags of it and hope to be able to eat it over the next week. I will be traveling with a nutritarian friend so maybe we can share it.