How to Keep Kale Fresh

Are you new to gardening and have found yourself with an embarrassment of riches in the form of fresh kale? Or maybe you have been regularly harvesting throughout the season but now need to pull out an entire kale plant to make room for some other garden goodies. Either way, you might be wondering how to store your haul and how to keep kale fresh in the fridge. Read on, because I just so happen to be a kale-obsessed gardener who always plants far, far too many kale plants.

How to Harvest Kale for Storage

If you have to remove an entire plant, I’m a proponent of no-till gardening, meaning I cut the plant at the base, right at soil level, and leave the root system in place, taking just the top of the plant out of the garden. There are lots of schools of thought about this, but since our current garden had been tilled twice a year for the last 30 years, I’m experimenting with a total no-till/no-dig garden after reading all about it from Charlie Nardozzi and Charles Dowding. But whether you’re harvesting individual leaves or removing an entire plant, make sure to cut all of the leaves off at the stem with a crisp, clean tool for a smooth cut. Then, gather all of your leaves with the cut sides facing the same direction.

Find Your Storage Container

Aside from being the wimpiest gardener you will ever meet, I also like to think that I’m the thriftiest/most frugal. Some, like my husband, might call it hoarding, but I prefer to call it repurposing items that would otherwise be destined for the trash. I did a whole post about my favorite frugal gardening hacks, and here’s one that I use specifically to keep kale fresh. Every few months we place a bulk online order from Costco, since the closest one is an hour away from us, and they always use the  most absolutely massive plastic ziploc bags I have ever seen to store liquid items so nothing leaks. Well, I save all of those bags and use them to keep kale fresh — and other leafy greens, of course, but I’m a crazy kale lady so today we’re talking about kale. It’s so versatile! In smoothies, dehydrated kale chips, kale salads, grilled kale, sautéed kale…I feel like the guy in Forrest Gump talking about shrimp.

Anyways, I take my huge kale harvest, brush any soil off, and plop them cut side down in the giant plastic bag, then add about ¼ cup of water to the bottom of the bag and seal it up. I store the bag upright on the door of our fridge, but have stored it horizontally in a pinch. Don’t ask me the science about how this works but I can usually get 2 weeks of perfectly crisp kale by using this method to keep kale fresh. Wondering why I don’t wash it first? Honestly, it’s laziness. Sometimes I do wash it first but I’ve found I have a much higher likelihood of remembering to store it immediately if I just plop it right in the bags and then wash as I need it.

If you don’t have comically large Costco ziploc bags, then get creative — keep your eyes peeled for any large plastic bags that you get in deliveries. You’ll be surprised what you find when you don’t immediately send packing materials to the trash or recycling. And yes, we could certainly get into the weeds about the health effects of plastic (I personally use the “5, 4, 1, 2 all the rest are bad for you!” rhyme when keeping plastic containers for storage, makeshift kids’ music toys, etc) but I have to imagine that the health benefits of eating loads and loads of organic leafy greens fresh from the garden and keeping plastic out of the landfill outweighs the minute negative health effects of using plastic bags to keep kale fresh in the fridge. But I’m no scientist!

There you have it! If you use this method, I would love to know how it works for you. I’ll do a separate post on how I store fresh leafy greens like lettuces, chard, spinach, you know, the more tender greens. Kale (along with most other brassicas) is very hardy and can take whatever you throw at it so that’s another reason why I love it. Lettuces are a bit more finicky. Enjoy, and may you eat kale in all of its glorious forms for weeks and weeks on end!