Sea kale is a striking and hardy plant that seems to flourish on bleak, inhospitable pebble beaches. Quite often it will be alone, the only copper-green bloom of life bound and rooted expressively to the hard stones. In spring it buds, producing the most delicious broccoli-like spears. The new leaf growth is so tender you can eat it raw, while the slightly larger leaves respond well to blanching or steaming lightly and serving with butter and good olive oil. Both raw and cooked, the leaves have a gentle salinity, as many of our coastal greens do. In late spring and early summer, the plant blooms, producing dainty, edible white flowers. In the autumn it fruits, producing hundreds of pearl-like berries. In the winter, you can find the dead frames of sea kale plants tumbling about the beach in the wind, often with their berries still attached.