By Advocate Staff

Like an itchy sweater your auntie knitted, you can’t just throw kale out, you have to do something with it. Lord knows eating it is out of the question, so here are some suggestions for how to get the most out of that claw-like green:

1. Hang a sprig over your doorway to ward off prowling rednecks.
2. Scrub with it in the shower — for that fresh exfoliated feel!
3. Use it to make pretentious seasonal solstice wreaths
4. Keep some in your trunk. You can put it under your wheels to get your stuck car out of the snow, come winter.
5. Grab a handful and put it in the blender. Add a few stalks of celery, a cucumber, a chunk of ginger, and some pineapple. Blend for 60 seconds until smooth. Pour directly into trash can.
6. Keep a Ziploc bag full of kale in the glove box of your car just in case you need to go to the bathroom in the woods.
7. Grab some scissors and cut a hole in a leaf. Summertime visor for aspiring golfers!
8. Researchers have recently found that Da Vinci’s flying machine might have worked with the right materials. Kale wings? You would’ve gone down in history, Leonardo.
9. Swimming pool leak? Kale leaf and rubber cement. (Warning: repair may only last 10 or 12 seasons.)
10. Free mudflaps!
11. Use a leaf as an organic fly swatter.
12. No ball? No problem. Play kick kale with a head of the stuff.
13. Shutdown the pop-in forever by serving kale to uninvited guests.