Tried to Like It

[Dahlia]

Not too many vegetables I won't eat... whether I choose to grow them is another matter. I don't like the slimy texture of purslane or Malabar spinach, and won't eat even slightly bitter greens (which is ironic, given that I eat bitter melon). Not a big fan of rutabaga, although I loved it mashed when I was young. And just never developed a like for kale or collards.

Zeedman,
I only like baby kale. The other stuff is pretty tuff. You might want to give baby kale a try! It's WAY better!

 

[Zeedman]

Zeedman, I'm wondering if you can get a plant thru winter. This is the 2nd March that we have had over-wintered collards. What a different (better) ,,version of the veggie!

I didn't know that it was possible and don't know if they could survive a normal winter. My Portuguese kale can't make it through even this mild winter. Surprised to see my first try with Italian kale, it had about a 50% fatality level. (May try to keep the Siberian variety thru next winter. Shucks, if the name means anything ... No aphids to bother it in January! )

Zeedman,
I only like baby kale. The other stuff is pretty tuff. You might want to give baby kale a try! It's WAY better!

I'm not sure I could over-winter any greens here. I tried that with chard twice because I was hoping to grow my own seed. When I gardened in San Diego, I had chard plants that were several years old; I just cut the "trunks" back every Spring, and pruned all but the 2-3 strongest shoots. Here - no luck. All of the unmulched plants died (and it was a long row). So I tried covering the plants over winter with a heavy layer of straw; voles tunneled under the mulch, and ate all the plants to below ground level. I may never know whether the plants could over-winter here, because voles tunnel everywhere under the snow, and I doubt I could protect anything they want to eat.

It has been my observation that nearly all vegetables (including greens) sweeten in cool weather. Most of the chard we froze last year was harvested in Fall, for that reason. "Baby" greens also tend to be sweeter & more tender. My normally wet Springs & heavy soils generally make early plantings impossible; but if I plant collards for Fall harvest - and cut them back in late Summer to encourage new growth - they might be more palatable. A project for another time maybe, I already have too many irons in the fire this year.

 

[flowerbug]

just remember that some plants use oxylates as frost protection (like rhubarb which you don't eat the leaves, but the oxylates go from the leaves to the stems in rhubarb) so if you are having trouble with too many of those in your diet you probably don't want to eat some plants after cold weather.

 

[digitS']

Don't know nuthin bout oxalates, @flowerbug .

So, I'm reading WebMD. There's all these otherwise nutritious foods listed!

Maybe this is good:
"Kale and Boc Choy
If you’re watching your intake of oxalates, kale and bok choy are nutrient-rich greens with just 2 milligrams and 1 milligram of oxalates per cup, respectively."

Broccoli is also on the "safer" list. So, it looks like brassicas may get a pass but the article doesn't say anything about winter/spring harvesting.

Steve

 

[Zeedman]

just remember that some plants use oxylates as frost protection (like rhubarb which you don't eat the leaves, but the oxylates go from the leaves to the stems in rhubarb) so if you are having trouble with too many of those in your diet you probably don't want to eat some plants after cold weather.

I've never read anything about oxalates being used for frost protection, or that oxalate content increases with cold weather. Since oxalates cause sourness or bitterness, and chard gets sweeter in cool weather, my experience has been the opposite. @flowerbug , do you have a reference for that?

(as I drink my hot mocha)
Incidentally, reading through the list of high oxalate foods: chocolate, chard, okra, whole grains, mixed nuts w/o peanuts, seasame seeds. These are all mainstays of my diet, and I'd be really hard pressed to give them up. This seems to be a healthy diet (as verified by all of my test results) and fortunately, neither I nor DW is prone to kidney stones. Give up my chard and pickled okra??? Those are some of the main reasons I garden.

 

[flowerbug]

I've never read anything about oxalates being used for frost protection, or that oxalate content increases with cold weather. Since oxalates cause sourness or bitterness, and chard gets sweeter in cool weather, my experience has been the opposite. @flowerbug , do you have a reference for that?

(as I drink my hot mocha)
Incidentally, reading through the list of high oxalate foods: chocolate, chard, okra, whole grains, mixed nuts w/o peanuts, seasame seeds. These are all mainstays of my diet, and I'd be really hard pressed to give them up. This seems to be a healthy diet (as verified by all of my test results) and fortunately, neither I nor DW is prone to kidney stones. Give up my chard and pickled okra??? Those are some of the main reasons I garden.

it has been my understanding that the oxalates in the leaves migrate into the stems when a rhubarb plant has gone through frost and so to not eat any rhubarb that has had frost damage. i tried to find actual testing and references for this but here is one article which does show this as a concern, but admittedly not to the extent i thought:

Is It Safe to Use Rhubarb After a Spring Frost?

After spring frosts that are so common in late April and early May, there are often questions about rhubarb plants that were exposed to freezing temperatures. Many rhubarb plants begin growing earl…

growingtogetherwithdonkinzler.wordpress.com

this was a more general article about oxalates which was worth the read:

Can you tell me about oxalates, including the foods that contain them and how are they related to nutrition and health?

Non-profit foundation providing reliable, scientifically accurate, personalized information for convenient and enjoyable healthy eating.

www.whfoods.com

my own specific problem was not from kidney stones but that it would make my feet hurt if i ate too much rhubarb. in moderation i have no issues but i was eating large amounts of it at times and having problems.

i'm not really eating that much now that most of the friends have passed away that i would make rhubarb sauce for but i have a few servings each year. strawberries here come along later than the rhubarb and by then the quality of the rhubarb isn't as good. i actually grow it now more for the border planting and that it shades out the grasses back there that want to come through.

 

[Zeedman]

Thank you for those, @flowerbug .

I would agree with the concept re: frost-damaged rhubarb, although I am surprised to find no footnotes or references to support the stated conclusions - especially when the article is endorsed by NDSU. I don't eat anything frost damaged, so am in no danger regardless (I do have a well-developed rhubarb patch). Still, I would have expected better scientific data from a respected agricultural institution. I'm sure that as someone else who understands & appreciates the scientific method, you share my disappointment in the use of statements such as "Many universities have studied..." without references to those studies. Sadly, this is not the first time I have seen poorly-supported Extension articles.

In contrast, the second link is more credible. It offers a lot of useful & specific data, and has considerable references supporting the information provided. Because a doctor once thought that I might have gout, I have previously researched oxalic acid & oxalates extensively. Fortunately, subsequent testing eliminated the possibility of gout, and I have seen no sign (yet) that either DW or I are experiencing any adverse effects from our admittedly high-oxalate diet. At present, the health benefits seem to outweigh any potential negatives... but I haven't ruled out such a possibility in the future, and keep a watchful eye on our health vs. diet.

It would really be nice to see any scientific papers regarding variations in taste, texture, or nutrition caused by changes in temperature. I have observed low temperature changes in a wide range of species, and time several of my harvests to take advantage of that - most notably chard and peppers. Plenty of articles out there about storage temperatures, but very little on the impact of harvest temperature on garden vegetables.

 

[digitS']

By the time I moved to the sticks during my twenties, I had eaten kale and other greens because of my mother's tendency to shop at health food stores. My own garden on the California coast should have included greater variety than just my favorites but I was busy with other things.

The acres of ground in northern Idaho, although mostly covered with evergreen forest, provided ground for a garden, I believe it was, 120' by 180'. Just short of the furthest distant new little fruit orchard, I planted the Scotch kale.

Knowing that it could be harvested during winter, it was allowed to grow. The plants were 4' to 5' tall by October! And, it began to snow ... I still remember my path thru the 4' snow that fell from the backdoor, to the garden gate, then all that way to the kale! Quite an adventure enjoyed just to arrive back in my kitchen with a few kale leaves! It was a good number of years before I was willing to grow it again.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

Thank you for those, @flowerbug .

I would agree with the concept re: frost-damaged rhubarb, although I am surprised to find no footnotes or references to support the stated conclusions - especially when the article is endorsed by NDSU. I don't eat anything frost damaged, so am in no danger regardless (I do have a well-developed rhubarb patch). Still, I would have expected better scientific data from a respected agricultural institution. I'm sure that as someone else who understands & appreciates the scientific method, you share my disappointment in the use of statements such as "Many universities have studied..." without references to those studies. Sadly, this is not the first time I have seen poorly-supported Extension articles.

i was pretty surprised by that too, but i ran out of time to dig into it further. perhaps it is just a tale told to me that i believed but i had read it someplace i'm sure... i just haven't been able to find out where. my normal first reference off-line is a large old book of questions and answers put out by Reader's Digest. much of what is in there is basic information that is useful even if some parts of it are now out of date. on-line searches can come up with all sorts of things, but then wading through those can take some time to find actual research type articles.

In contrast, the second link is more credible. It offers a lot of useful & specific data, and has considerable references supporting the information provided. Because a doctor once thought that I might have gout, I have previously researched oxalic acid & oxalates extensively. Fortunately, subsequent testing eliminated the possibility of gout, and I have seen no sign (yet) that either DW or I are experiencing any adverse effects from our admittedly high-oxalate diet. At present, the health benefits seem to outweigh any potential negatives... but I haven't ruled out such a possibility in the future, and keep a watchful eye on our health vs. diet.

good to hear, i'm a bit leery so i do watch how much of what i eat, no repeating episodes since way back when, so i'm keeping my watch too.

i was surprised this recent reading to see there was quite a difference between kidney beans (lower) than navy beans (higher).

 

[flowerbug]

i had hopes for this article, but no luck, i'll keep looking...

Prairie Fare: Can Rhubarb Become Toxic?

["According to a widely circulated Facebook post launched in another state, rhubarb could become toxic (poisonous) after a frost. Could that be true?", ""]

www.ag.ndsu.edu

arg! frustrating:

Just Ask Us: Can rhubarb become dangerous if exposed to cold weather?

Q: Can rhubarb become dangerous if exposed to cold weather? A: Rhubarb plants as a whole aren’t permanently damaged by cold freezes in the spring, but the edible stalks can be altered by...

apnews.com

this is long, talking about rhubarb in general, but since i read through it quickly i figured i'd put it here anyways:

What we already know about rhubarb: a comprehensive review - PMC

Rhubarb (also named Rhei or Dahuang), one of the most ancient and important herbs in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), belongs to the Rheum L. genus from the Polygonaceae family, and its application can be traced back to 270 BC in “Shen Nong Ben ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

what a monster, some interesting hints, i don't have time to read it all:

https://business.ct.gov/-/media/CAES/DOCUMENTS/Publications/Bulletins/B424pdf.pdf

will keep looking, but not any more today.