Gardeners who grow their own should make room for some kail, or kale as it’s spelled beyond Scotland's borders. You can grow kail whatever the scale of your garden and harvest it like cut-and-come-again or in the traditional way.

Between the 15th and 18th century, kail was reputedly the only vegetable our ancestors ate, and very sparingly at that. In those days, Lowlanders often protected their kailyards from hungry cattle by erecting stone barriers from derelict houses. Since kail was often fed to cattle elsewhere in Great Britain, some people were pleased to note that we Scots ate crops that were only deemed fit for cattle.

So I’m delighted that this humble fare has rocketed to the top of the list of so-called superfoods. Rich in antioxidants, it also contains glucosinolates which, according to a recent study at the University of Michigan, effectively block the development of six different kinds of cancer.

Kail also contains many health-giving vitamins and calcium. My daughter-in-law was recently swept into a ditch by a passing lorry and broke her collar bone. We ended up force-feeding her kail to help mend her bones.

Kail is much more nutritious when freshly picked. It’s been estimated that kail may have lost up to 80 per cent of its nutritional value by the time it reaches supermarket shelves. If you then boil the vegetable, hardly any antioxidants will be left. It's better to stir-fry or saute kail, or use it as a salad crop.

In the vegetable garden, kail should be sown in March or April. When fully mature, it supplies pickings in late autumn and the following spring. When the plant starts again in spring, after sprouting new leaves, it grows tiny, broccoli-like tufts of leaf at leaf nodes. Each tuft would produce a bitter flowering shoot, but, when harvested early, provides instead a sweet, tasty nibble. This harvesting also delays flowering.

If you can’t grow kail because it’s so hungry for space, needing at least 45cm between plants, then treat it almost like cut-and-come-again, sowing either in a small plot or a large container.

From late March onwards, sow seed thinly in a prepared seed bed and thin to between 5cm and 8cm once the first two real leaves have formed. After about a month – depending on temperature and the time of year – the seedlings should be around 10cm tall.

At this stage, you can snip off the leaves to around 5cm above ground level. The plants will regrow, giving you a second and third cutting. These later cuttings will be tougher than the first, so you might prefer to cut the leaves down to ground level and dispose of the plants. By sowing successionally every two or three weeks, you’re assured a constant supply of the tenderest young greens.

A third possibility is to thin the young plants, leaving between a third and a half of them to keep growing. This way, you’ll get some winter pickings and even more in spring from ones you’ve left uncut.

Although large kail specimens won’t thrive in pots, they make handsome plants even in a small ornamental bed. Grow two or three plants to maturity, as you would in a vegetable patch.

When it comes to choosing varieties, you’re spoilt for choice. I certainly recommend traditional open-pollinated varieties, like Dwarf Green Curled, Nero di Toscana and Ragged Jack, each with slightly different taste and leaf texture.

But many new F1s have also come on stream to meet the huge demand. Kapitan F1 yields well from summer to spring, producing a mild, slightly cabbage-like taste. Darkibor F1 also has a delicate flavour and is especially hardy. But, if you’d like one with a more distinctive, slightly peppery flavour, try Seaweed. It works well as a summer and autumn salad variety, but becomes fairly tough in the spring.