Nero Di Toscana – Dinosaur Kale
Sherry found out this was the green bits in Olive Garden Potato Soup so she said “grow this”, and of course I did.
A pretty amazing plant with a variety of uses, it is said to be hardy against the harshest of winters and is a biennial which like Swiss Chard means it produces seeds in its second year. We have had lots of overwintered chard so I think this will do fine here.
We like to use this in egg dishes, cooked like spinach, in soups and stews and of course as fresh greens, These plants were put in this spring and they have grown to 3 feet tall with a 2” thick trunk on them. They have a prehistoric palm tree look to them as they get larger and the lower leaves are harvested. Harvesting leaves is super easy, just grab flip downward and they snap off. This is nice for harvesting for the chickens as it takes a lot to make chicken salad for 50 hens.
These sorts of plants that provide for both us and chickens in high volume are the kinds we really like so we will be letting these free seed and collect seed also to spread around the gardens.