Your KITCHEN GARDEN

Cavolo nero – or black Tuscan kale – is the most useful brassica in my garden, and although it’s at its best in winter when the leaves have had some frost on them, I grow it all year round. It can be eaten raw in salads when young, or cooked if the leaves have been left standing from summer through to spring. It’s great in stews, soups and sauces. You pick the leaves individually, and the plant replaces them with more and more fresh ones until it starts to flower almost a year after planting. I sow the first seeds of the year in a seed tray or plugs in January, with a couple of extra sowings at monthly intervals. If germinated in seed trays, the seedlings must be pricked out into pots before being planted out into their final positions in ground that has previously grown a leguminous crop such as peas or beans. The plants grow fairly large so need 60cm space all around them. They may also need to be staked. If grown as a salad crop, cavolo nero can be sown directly into the soil in rows and thinned to just 10cm. It’s a brassica so will need protection from cabbage white butterflies between June and September.