Endive is a cool-weather salad green with a distinct clean, sharp taste. A handful of endive leaves mixed into your salad bowl adds a wonderful touch.
Endive doesn’t like hot weather, but it can take a few hard frosts. I grow it as a fall crop only, and sow it directly into the garden. You also can start endive indoors like head lettuce. Either way, plants should stand 6 to 7 inches apart.
Some people blanch the endive plants when the heads are getting large to reduce the bitterness, but I don’t. I’ve noticed that the plants nearly blanch themselves. The inside portion of the head stays white, and that’s the best tasting part. We cut it up to mix with lettuce or other salad greens.
I like the curly-leaf endive varieties such as Green Curled. A green known as escarole is actually a less-curly endive with broader leaves.
Kale: The winter wonder crop and nutritionist’s delight
Back before lettuce was hauled thousands of miles to market, truck farmers near big cities grew kale in fall, late winter, and early spring. It filled the demand for fresh, nutritious salad greens. Unfortunately, kale has since lost much of its popularity in spite of its high vitamin and mineral content and appealing flavor. I hope we get back to eating more of it.
Kale prefers cool weather, but it can survive quite a bit of heat if you give it some water. I know—I’ve grown beautiful wide rows of kale in Florida.
In Vermont I plant the seeds in wide rows in midsummer and harvest when the plants are tall enough to have some leaves cut. In some areas of the South you can plant as late as September or October and have fresh kale through the mild winter. A few weeks after planting, thin the kale so the plants are 4 to 6 inches apart. Later on, pull up some plants to give those remaining plenty of room to grow.
Don’t pull up or till under kale plants in the fall when you might think it’s time to stop gardening. Let them keep growing right into winter. They will survive through cold and snow. The deeper the snow, the greater the thrill of harvesting some crisp blue-green kale.
Because kale is a biennial, another peak harvesting period is when the snow melts and the plants start growing again. The new leaves are delicious raw, or you can cook them and use them like spinach or as a garnish.
Siberian Kale and Blue Curled Scotch Kale are the two varieties you’ll most likely see in the seed racks. Blue Curled Scotch is better tasting to me and winters over very well. By the way, the Blue Curled Scotch makes a nice houseplant in winter. Jan and I dig up a couple each fall, pot them, and place them near a south-facing window. The plants lose some color, but the intricate shapes of the curled leaves are quite pleasing.
We also like to plant flowering or ornamental varieties of kale. Their curly green and maroon leaves are beautiful at the edge of the garden. They also can be potted and brought indoors for the winter.
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