Chirimen hakarashi

Wasabina

Since the baby greens in the variety trial are big enough to distinguish, it's time to look at each of them in greater detail.  Today's green: wasabina!

I ordered these seeds from Kitazawa Seed Co.  Mainly because of the name, but also because I ordered everything described as 'cold tolerant.'   The seed company describes wasabina as:

"This light green serrated leaf mustard brings a delicious, spicy, wasabi-like flavor to a salad mix of baby leaf greens. The large, tender mature leaves are ruffled with curly edges and are best cooked. Very cold tolerant."

So far, the leaves are serrated and have fine hairs on the edges and veins.  The hairs aren't prickly like those found on old mizuna leaves.  So wasabina would be ok to add in a salad mix.  Right now they just taste like a mild mustard green and aren't spicy at all.  Probably the spiciness will increase as the plants mature.

New seeds are here!

In the fall I'm going to try out a number of more obscure greens.  Most of them are brassicas that are cool weather hardy.  I'm pretty excited.  In less than a month I'm going to start planting.  Not these particular varieties, but more common greens like spinach, lettuce and mizuna.

Pak choi - a green for next winter season

I'm getting together a list of greens to try out during the next winter growing season.  Pak choi is definitely on the list.  The greens on the left of the picture above are variety of pak choi called joy choi (tatsoi is on the left).  Pak choi part of the Brassica rapa var. chinensis group.  Originally we didn't think it would be a very good baby green because it forms heavy heads.  It seemed to work out in the tray above and grew faster than the tatsoi!  The stems were thick and crunchy but the taste was mild.  Pretty much exactly what I want to be eating in the middle of winter.

The brassica family

Many of the greens I grow come from the huge brassica family.  By no means is this 'family tree' of brassica's complete.  It's mainly the greens I have grown, the greens I'd like to grow, and some other branches that are substantial/important.  Have I gotten anything wrong?  Anything you would like to see added? 

tree picture

Stuffing myself full of greens

If you remember, a few weeks ago I was lamenting that I have too many greens and was searching for new ways to eat them.  Coincidentally, a few nights ago there was a "Super nourishing greens cooking and wellness" class a few towns over.  (It was held at the Blue Moon Cafe.  I've never eaten there before, but the menu sounded amazing.)  Now I'm full of ideas how to use up all our greens.

Last night we had mustard green pesto for dinner.  I guess pesto isn't really that original.  For whatever reason I didn't think that I could use mustard greens to make it.  Maybe because no one else does?  Mustard greens (all five varieties!) have been the hardest to get rid of because they can't be put into a smoothie.  We tried, but it just didn't taste very good.

My mustard green pesto with sunflower seeds and LOTS of garlic tasted pretty good.  It didn't photograph so well, and just looked like green goop.  You'll just have to believe me when I say it tasted good.

Scarlett and Ruby

Meet Scarlett and Ruby, two of the mustard greens that are being measured and weighed during the next few weeks.  During the summer I hated harvesting this kind of green because they were always frilly, bolting and never amounted to very much.  

I thought these two greens would be pretty much the same thing: dark red frilly mustard greens.  But they are definitely not!  Scarlett Frills is darker with skinny leaves.  Ruby Streaks is reddish and bright green.  It's far 'frilly-er' (and I think prettier).

four weeks of growth - it's time to eat!

All the greens are not 'full size' yet, but the kale, mizuna, tokyo bekana, tatsoi and scarlett frills are!

Growth rate of greens (or experiment number two!)

Even though the weather right now is not very winter-like I've started a second experiment.  Describing this one is much simpler:  I am going to see how different varieties of greens grow in the 'cold.'  The same kind of work was done last spring and fall and I'll be doing a lot more of it next winter.  

A few of the greens I'm growing are in this mixed flat.

The goal is to be able to estimate how long it will take green to reach a harvestable size as light and temperature levels change drastically in the fall and spring.  By the end I'd like the be able to say "if you plant lettuce in September you'll be harvesting in late october, but if you plant in october you won't be harvesting until december."

Arugula grown spring 2011

The chart above is a snippet of the data collected last year.  The temperatures are when the greenhouse heaters turn on.  You can see that keeping the greenhouse ten degrees warmer makes a big difference in growth (leaf length).  The length of the arugula grown at 40 degrees seems to be leveling off at around 40 days of growth.  If you knew it was not going to grow anymore you would harvest it at forty days.  Leaving it in the ground won't mean it was going to grow anymore.  The same observation can't be made for the arugula grown at fifty degrees - which is why we need more data!

What's going to happen:

I am growing ten varieties of greens:

1. spinach
2. kale
3. green romaine lettuce
4. red romaine lettuce
5. arugula
6. mizuna
7. tokyo bekana
8. tat soi
9. ruby streaks
10. scarlet frills

I'll make eight harvests at 3 - 10 weeks after planting.

At each harvest I will measure:

• The length of 10 leaves of each species 
• The weight of each species harvested

Pretty simple!  Are there any greens you would like to see on the list?  Leave a comment below and I'll take it into consideration for the next round.

one week of growth

These little guys are only one week old!  They are part of  the new experiment I am working on.  I'll start posting about it in the very near future.

plant profile: tatsoi

During last week's heatwave it took only three days for most of the brassica species I've planted to sprout. Three days!  Tat soi was one of those greens.  Until last year I thought tat soi, pak choi and and bok choi were the same thing.  Obviously then this is a variety of green I need to know a bit more about.

image from http://www.stonofarmmarket.com/tat-soi.html

Tatsoi is a another green in the Brassicaceae family.  It makes up the Narinosa group (Maybe - apparently there is some debate - see the comment below.  This kind of debate is typical in organizing plants which is why I don't study botany!)  It forms a head of compact spoon shaped leaves at maturity.  We'll be growing it as baby greens, not as a head.  It can be grown as a microgreen too.  It likes cool weather which is why we are growing it for the wintergreens project.

image from Johnnyseeds.com

Tatsoi is apparently really easy to grow.  I followed the sowing directions from Johnny's for baby greens when I planted last week.  In a few weeks I'm hoping for some spoon shaped leaves to photograph and eat!

vitamin green

*Edit 5/19 - When I ordered seeds earlier this spring I couldn't get any vitamin greens seeds.  Johnny's batch of seeds had some noxious weed seeds in it so they couldn't sell it.  I will be growing this green in the coming fall - it's still the one I'm most excited to grow!

*Edit 11/28 - I've grown some (and eaten some) vitamin green!  See them here!


I think gardeners all over are giddy with excitement.  It's the time of year boxes of seeds come in the mail.  I got my box of seeds in their clean white envelopes last week.  Tomorrow I am going to plant eleven varieties of greens.  Many are species you have heard of - spinach, kale and arugula - but some I have never heard of before.  So, I've done a bit of investigating. 

photo from johnnyseeds.com

The first green, and the one I might be most excited to grow, is called vitamin green.  It is in the Brassica rapa napa group which means it's a loose-headed cabbage-y type green.  They are a common Japanese green that grow vigorously and are cold tolerant.  The name vitamin green comes from their high vitmin A content.  According to Johnny's the "tender leaves are flavorful, but not at all mustardy."  On a blog I read that they are "sweet and bright with just enough bite to bring them down to earth."

I couldn't find much else about them, so it seems like measuring their growth rate (part of my next experiment) will be useful as well as tasty.  If you know anything about this green let me know! 

You named it! Poll results

Most people correctly identified the two greens.  The tokyo bekana was a bit harder to identify because it looks a lot like green leaf lettuce or arugula.  That was the point!  If it was in a salad you probably wouldn't think twice and assume it was lettuce.

I think that's a good thing.  For winter growing tokyo bekana seems like a little know substitute for lettuce in salad mixes.  My top three reasons why:

1. It germinates and grows faster than lettuce
2. It has thicker, crunchier leaves 
3. It has a consistent mild flavor (unlike lettuce which can be bitter)

Tokyo bekana poll results

Lettuce poll results

plant profile: tokyo bekana

Brassica rapa cv. Tokyo Bekana

Appearance - Tokyo bekana has light greens leaves with curled, ruffled edges that can cause it to be mistaken for green leaf lettuce. Despite its appearance tokyo bekana is in the Brassica rapa, or Chinese cabbage family and is considered a loose leaf cabbage.

Uses - Tokyo bekana can be used as a salad green or in stir fry's.

Varieties - I've only found one, but 'Fun jen' is a very (very) similar green.

Culture - Treat tokyo bekana green like any other in the Brassica rapa family. Sow seeds 1/4 inch deep in moderate temperatures between 60-85.  Once the seeds have sprouted temperatures a bit lower, between 55-75 degrees, is sufficient for growth.  

For baby greens seeds should be sown in 2-4 inch bands with 60 seeds per foot.  For larger leaves sow only 15 seeds per foot in 2-inch wide bands in rows 18 inches apart.

Harvest - During the summer baby greens should be ready for harvest in about.  Full sized leaves should be harvestable in 40 days.  In the winter baby greens can be harvested in 40 days (at least that's what I have seen so far.)  Tokyo bekana is a cut-and-come-again crop and will produce multiple harvests.  It has a good shelf life once harvested.

Pests - Like all Brassicas flee beetles are a major pest of toyko bekana.  Using floating row covers is an easy method of controlling these pests.  For more information check out the UNH Cooperative extension's page on flee beetles.

plant profile: Mizuna

Brassica rapa juncea

(kyona, shui cai)

Appearance - Mizuna is an upright green with deeply cut serrated leaves on thin white stalks.  It is part of the hot and spicy group of mustards in the Brassica rapa family but has a mild flavor.  It can tolerate both heat, humidity and cold weather making it a good year round crop.  

Uses - Originally, mizuna is from China but is thought of as a Japanese green that is primarily used for cooking.  Here in the west is mainly used as a salad green but as it becomes more well known its uses are growing to include stir fries and stuffing for raviolis.

Varieties

Culture - Mizuna is easy to grow and should be treated like other Brassicas.  Sow seeds 1/4 inch deep in moderate temperatures between 60-85.  Once the seeds have sprouted temperatures a bit lower, between 55-75 degrees, is sufficient for growth.  

For baby greens seeds should be sown in 2-4 inch bands with 60 seeds per foot.  For larger leaves sow only 15 seeds per foot in 2 inch wide bands in rows 18 inches apart.

Harvest - Baby greens should be ready for harvest in about 21 days, depending on temperature and light levels.  Full sized leaves should be harvestable in 40 days.  Mizuna is a cut-and-come-again crop and will produce multiple harvests.

Pests - Like all Brassicas flee beetles are the major pest of mizuna.  Using floating row covers is an easy method of controlling these pests.  For more information check out the UNH Cooperative extension's page on flee beetles.