By October it has cooled off some and the plants are making smaller leaves, but they’re sweeter and more tender.  Since I’ve been pulling leaves from the bottom of the plants all summer, they’re taller cos they keep going up, and the new leaves are further from the ground, so there’s less dirt on the leaves from dirt splashing up in the rain.  (Still look each leaf over well, rinse and soak 10 minutes in lightly salted water tho.) And, but mid September those nasty little bugger cabbage worms are gone, so the new leaves coming on since then don’t have places that were eaten,  tho I still look each leaf over well on the back, just to be sure. If I want protein, I’ll add it myself.  🙂 These are heirloom Vates collards and they’re the only kind I’d ever grow, cos they’re easy to grow, germination rate is always high, they  do well in almost any soil and are delicious.

I’ll cook these up tomorrow with some good veggie stock, a small amount of bacon that I’ve fried first, some shreds of carrot and small pieces of onion, and a big potato cut into cubes.  Mmm.

If you have some growing and know the first hard freeze is coming, you might want to  pick the leaves that are still on the plants and freeze some if you can’t use them all then.  I froze some several times over the summer when there were a lot more than I could use, and then wrote a blog about it. https://sarasinart.net/2015/08/14/freezing-collards/

They will continue to produce, tho slowing down, right till after the first real hard freeze.  And I’ll keep enjoying them till then.  Mmm.