Any Kale growers?

[putembk]

Totally forgot about this thread. Well, my big ass kale plant survived the winter and I was able to eat from it whenever I wanted. It's spring now, take a look at the flowers it produced.

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Nice plant, hate it, wife says it is good for me therefore I grow and eat the stuff. To early where I am at. Back off the P and K and it won't flower so much.

 

[Seamaiden]

I've got some Russian kale seeds, because our favorite restaurant has this kale salad on the menu that is pretty much my favorite. They serve it with a tart dressing with something like bacon, but it's not bacon, some small roasted potatoes, two big bleu cheese balls, fried, and a poached egg on the top.

 

[azmmjadvocates]

My garden has been fair to middling. I dedicated WAY too much space to this Romanesco cauliflower that not only has been heavily attacked by cabbage aphids (these things are FUCKS, worst pest EVER. If I had to rely on this solely for my winter foods, I'd be well and truly fucked), but I actually don't care for the flavor of. I'd rather have 'regular' broccoli or cauliflower.

This year was slightly better for tomatoes, but not by much. Seems to be looking to be fantastic for all the different winter squashes I planted. We're having a BUMPER CROP of eggplant this year and have been trying to figure out how to preserve it. I'm thinking an antipasto, but apparently most recipes aren't acidic enough.

IF I can get the remaining cauliflowers sufficiently aphid-free, I'd like to pickle those, too, or freeze perhaps (not the Romanesco, it needs help in the flavor department). I've been soaking in salt-vinegar water, but it's not killing them all. Anyone have suggestions for cleaning the produce?

Oh, this year was also my first time growing potatoes. I didn't know when I'm supposed to harvest, so some of the tops went dry so I dug them all up. Some had been attacked by ants or something, pockmarked with little holes that have allowed molding. I'll cut out the bad bits and cook the rest.

Im high as shit right now so I hope all this makes sense; It's kind of a pain in the ass but if you container all the Broccoli and Colliflower you can take a 50 gal barrel (during a rez change if you only have one), tape handles on the side of it, one on each side about half way down,, suspend a Co2 line at the bottom of the barrel, I place the lid on the ground, or floor in-home (I do most indoors) on 1x1 blocks so that the barrel lid will allow you to pass the Co2 tubing through the holes usually present in most Recirculating systems.

Soil is a bit harder, that is why I still do hydro outside with hydroten,, Yes, I know it is not the medium Fatman recommends but as he would also state, I think, is that some reasons for something are outweighed, not to mention I treat them prior to use.. The reason I like hydroten is it's easier to kill the bugs, preilite is cheep but I like using Hydroten over and over and over again, not that I recommend that for others to do that without the extra work to insure it's sterilized and clean again... i've used it literally for years with a cleaning routine. Anyway I digress as usual..

I flood the medium with warm water, blast the top water real quick with some organic insecticidal soap, then place the plant on the barrel lid, connect the bubbler tube coming from bottom of bucket to the regulator.. invert the barrel over the plant (at night stomata are closed) passing the overhead line to Co2 regulator via bottom of lid. that is how I move and plants in need of rescuing indoors. The main thing I'm sure you already know is to hit them with everything at once.. So then after the O2 / soap treatment I put some stickie traps on top of the medium and see if anything hatches a few days or week down the rd.. Them move them from quarrante back outside or to the indoor garden..

They really do good outside too as hydro buckets hooked into the drip, I was basically writing a pepper plant one time because I thought it was pot bound and about to die because I had to leave town for a few days and it wasn't on the automation.. I wanted to cut a few clones before it passed, so hooked it to the drip outside.. I ran the hose on the end of the bottom elbow on bucket so it would drain to some peppers in the soil.. Hell that thing came back to life, I kept putting off cloning so gave it some nutes.

IN soil it's a bit more difficult because if you flood the bed it plogs the C02 line in the soil and the gas does not move as well as through Pearlite, Hydroten or rubber mulch.

 

[azmmjadvocates]

You can also place an aquarium pump at the bottom of lid and run that to the roots, it delivers less Co2 gas because it just pickus up what falls but I think it bubbles upward better as the gas likes to fall and can be a bit to cold concentrated.