Italian Heirloom and Red Kale

The first photo above shows my Italian Heirloom kale which is doing great this summer in my garden and the photo below it shows the border of my garden with Red Kale. The Kale is doing great this summer as we have more rain than usual and I am not good about watering my garden and I rarely water my lawn.

I did not plant the beautiful flowering kale this year as I like to rotate my kale crops since I can not help but plant some in areas where I planted members of this family the year before.

We pick leaves from the bottom; the oldest leaves and new ones continue to grow and develop from the top. I put chopped kale into almost everything and we use a leaf of kale instead of a leaf of lettuce in sandwiches.

We cook it like spinach, chop it up into sauces, but our very favorite might be "kale-banana-almond milk-based smoothies."