Hello, Sparkle Friends. This is Lisbeth at Sparkle Stories here in the beginning of May in which we are thinking about growing things. This week, it's about gardens and growing things that you can eat yourself. This story is called so much kale. And I remember

when we wrote this story, it was based on a problem we were having in our own home in which our

little Vermont gardens had so much kale, we had no idea what to do. And so we set out to find

all the kale recipes we possibly could. You'll see Martin and Sylvia have the same challenge. What do you do when you have so much kale? There are actually recipes on the Sparkle website that go with this story. If you want to go to Sparkle Stories blog and search so much kale, you will find them.

Before I share the story, I want to encourage you to subscribe. It's so easy. You just go to the

Sparkle Stories website and click the button in the top right that says start free trial. Then you

join the entire Sparkle Stories library. You have immediate access to all 1,500 plus of our original

stories, and you can listen to as much as you like, anytime you like. Everybody starts for free.

And all the stories are just as delightful as this one. Okay, now, onto the story, so much kale, from the Martin and Sylvia More Adventures collection. Enjoy. So much kale.

Martin and Sylvia live in a tall house with lots of windows.

From their second-story loft bedroom, they can see their entire backyard, with the tall maple

and oak trees on one side, and the horse fence that borders the Browns farm on the other.

The backyard also has several garden plots where mama, daddy, brother and sister grow all sorts

of vegetables and colorful flowers, from marigolds to day lilies and cucumbers to pumpkins.

It was the middle of the summer, and brother and sister were very excited about the vegetable gardens.

There was one plot that was dedicated to onions and leeks and garlic,

and all the pointy leaves looked like spiky, dark green grass.

One plot was for tomatoes and basil and peppers, and though there were no

ripe vegetables quite yet, they could see the little fruits growing every day. There was another plot

that was for cucumbers and peas and beans, and they were doing very well.

They had these vegetables together because they could all climb up a special wall that they

built along the back. There were lots of pea pods every day now, and brother and sister

...