Flowering Kale

Flowering kale straddles the line between vegetable and flower. It is more likely to be considered neither, rather than both. Edible but not tasty, sturdy rather than delicate, its crisp ruffled leaves form rosettes that look almost indestructible. Some people just don't like it. The blame should go, in part, to those who plop the plants into the ground in perfectly spaced rows, making it look like a vegetable crop waiting to be harvested. White, purple or variegated, I am thankful for its cold-hardiness. It survives to cheer us up during the bleakest stretch of winter.