Winter Kale Flags

Sure, our winter has been mild, but I'm still impressed with the kale plants I see projecting from abandoned raised beds all over West Philly. These plants rise on slightly curved stalks, capped with half-shriveled leaves, and scaley below with the scars of the ones already harvested.

I never got into late brassicas. Early mustard (tendergreen, tatsoi, giant red, and my new favorite: mizuna) has launched my spring gardening for a few years now, along with pea shoots, but after a couple years of feeding the harlequin bugs, I gave up on the fall.

But why are all these other harlequin-bug-free gardeners not harvesting their winter kale? What's the point of leaving all those perfectly edible leaves out all winter? I mean they could harvest half of them and the plant would get by on the rest. Have they forgotten about their plots?

I suspect that it might have something to do with kale as a badge of 'sustainable' virtue. Kale is, of course, a badge of ethicurian-bohemianism (hard to throw a rock in my neighborhood without hitting a kale chip or an undercooked leaf of kale marring an otherwise chewable sandwich). Perhaps these gardeners gain some smug satisfaction in leaving their tall kale flags to wave above the snow.