Research reports: winter green varieties for bench-top production

Fifteen minutes aren't over yet!

Want to see lovely pictures of all the varieties I successfully grew on bench-tops in the past few years? See the full report here or visit the Research Reports page.

Organizing salad greens by yield

When looking at yield data collected this past spring, I found the salad greens I've grown could be roughly categorized into three groups: heavy, mid and light weight.  These distinctions could be useful when building a unique salad mix with some lessor known salad green varieties.

The highest yielding greens were the lettuces and loose headed cabbages.  These make a good basis for a salad mix because they are a) heavy and b) mild tasting.

Medium yield greens contain some of my favorite greens.  Ok, they are all my favorites and when mixed together they make a nice salad.  None of these have any spicy-ness, but they do offer good tastes and nice curvy leaves.  And beets and chard just so pretty.

Spicy mustards, arugula and kale make up the light weight category.  They are 'lofty' and add texture, color and interest to salad mixes.  Often, these are the greens that you don't want too much of in a salad anyway.  I've tried the mainly-mustard-greens salad and it was too much. The keyword there was 'tried.'  Other varieties of kale may produce a heavier yield, but the russian kales have rather spindly leaves when they are young.

What would you choose to put in your salad mix?

Field Day: Variety Trial

Vates Kale

I planted this kale a month ago and forgot what it was because I didn't label the tray.  I thought it was broccoli for a few days (even though I don't actually have any broccoli seeds). But it's not - it's Vates kale from High Mowing.  It's delightful and sweet and better than red russian kale.  The hairs on the edges of the leaves are not sharp.  If I didn't have to spray it with aphid killing pesticides I would be eating this weekend.  Oh well, it will be eaten soon.

Baby pak choi, a semi-failure

I have been putting off writing about baby pak choi for a week.  Maybe because they fall in my semi-failure category of greens.  The variety is Shanghai, a green stemmed variety from Kitazawa (High Mowing also supplies it).  I don't totally remember why I picked it except that it is a 'high yielding, cool season annual.'  It forms an hourglass shape and is pretty much grown for its flesh petioles (the bit that connects the leaf to the stem). 

 Growing a sexy, hourglass figure when you're crammed into a tray is kind of hard.  This is why I called it a semi-failure.  I got to eat some hand selected, delicious baby pak choi, but no one else did.  They variety just did not work as a baby green for the growing system we use.  I bet if they were grown in-ground with a bit more space instead of in trays they would be a brilliant (and high grossing?) crop.

*What is the proper way to spell pak choi?  Recently, I've been using a 'K' as Kitazawa does, but High Mowing using a 'C'.

Salad mix of the week

 I wanted to focus on spinach this week due to the evil spores that are slowly killing all of the spinach I have growing.  This weeks salad mix features spinach with two other dark green leaves: komatsuna and vitamin green.  I've already written about both of these greens, so they should sound familier.

I used baby sized vitamin green in these pictures.  Since taking them I've found 'grown up' sized leaves are better because of the stems.  This salad mix has no spice and would really benefit from exciting, colorful toppings like feta cheese, radishes, pomegranate seeds or all three.  (Last week I bought some feta and my salad eating life has changed!  Also, calling it a 'topping' sounds like I'm making an ice cream sundae.  Dried cherries in salad wouldn't be such a bad idea. . . )

Right now there are spinach seedlings that are not yet showing signs of downy mildew.  I know it is only a matter of time before they will, but until then I'm holding on to them.

fun jen or tokyo bekana?

I'm growing a number of copy cat greens this fall.  These two greens definitely fall into this category.  I wouldn't be able to tell them apart unless they were labeled. 

Tokyo bekana (on the left of the top picture) might have slightly bigger leaves.  Since everything is grown densely in containers I can't really say this for sure.  

Fun jen leaves might be slightly more ruffled.  Again, I can't really say for sure.  Either way, they are both really good, fast growing, crunchy, mild flavored greens.  I would grow either in my theoretic garden, but probably not both.  

viridescent vitamin green

Many weeks ago I took the baby vitamin green plants, which I posted about here, and transplanted them out of their small cells and into a big tray of compost.  I want to grow some greens and see what all the fuss was about.  Recently, I commented on how I preferred komatsuna as a baby green compared to vitamin green.  That's still true, but I am getting on board the vitamin green boat too.

Vitamin green

Why? Mainly because of the stems.  Usually stems are considered Undesirable in salad.  They stick out in unpleasant ways, making it hard to get bites into your mouth and then have they have the audacity to poke you.  Vitamin greens stems are totally different.  They are thick, crunchy and contain so much water that I would even call them juicy.  I frequently graze while I'm working, and they are now my favorite snack. 

Vitamin green

The fun part is definitely the stem, but the leaves are great too.  They are tender and in their old age seem to have lost the brassica, mustard-y flavor that I tasted in the baby leaves.  I've read people call vitamin greens 'bitter' but haven't found that at all - yet.  Perhaps if they are grown outside they could become bitter.  I brought the bunch of greens above home with the thought  of eating some raw and some stir fried, but I never made it past the salad.  The leaves disappeared into my usual mix of lettuce, spinach and mizuna, and the stems added perfect crunchiness.

Have you used vitamin green before? Did you cook it? Was it bitter? Tender?

Thanksgiving salad mix of the week

No one wants to eat salad on Thanksgiving.  Or so I heard on a radio program a few days ago.  I totally understand that there are already plenty of foods to eat during Thanksgiving dinner.  And, if you're a purist, the pilgrims and indians probably did not have salad at their dinner (but I'm sure they didn't have marshmallows on their sweet potatoes either).  There are still plenty of opportunities for salad eating in the next few days.  Namely, the snack before Thanksgiving when you're hungry, but want to save your appetite for the Main Event, or the day after Thanksgiving when you're feeling guilty for eating those marshmallowed sweet potatoes and calling them a vegetable.

This weeks salad mix is full of such pretty greens.  My mom says the best thing about beet greens is that they taste like beets.  I think their color is the best part (maybe you've noticed by the number of pictures I've taken here, here, here and here).  Swiss chard is almost as beautiful, if not quite as photogenic.  Vitamin green adds volume to the salad, without adding distracting flavor or color and tatsoi leaves are perfect, small circles.

vitamin green or vitaminna?

Vitamin green is the number one thing people are searching for when they find this blog.  When I found another green that had 'vitamin' it's in name I knew I had to try it out.  Can a tell a difference?  Nope.  Do I really know if they are the same variety? Not at all.

Perhaps vitamin green leaves are rounder than vitaminna.  

They both are mild tasting brassicas that I would use interchangeably.     

Red violet pak choi

Red violet pak choi is one of my favorite 'greens' this fall.  

I keep trying to take pictures of it, but it just doesn't seem to be very photogenic.

It's a hybrid in the B. rapa narinosa group of the brassica family.  It's cold tolerant and a vigorous producer.  It has spoon shaped leaves that can get pretty big (as big as my hand for example).  Leaves are always mild flavored, and tender, at least when grown in a greenhouse like I am.  

 There is great variety in leaf color from green with reddish viens, to red to deep purple.  I'm not sure if temperature or location has anything to do with this.  The seeds came from Kitazawa and their picture shows very dark purple plants grown outside.

komastuna

I thought vitamin green would be the favorite green this fall since everyone in the internet world is so enthusiastic about it.  But then I tried komatsuna.  How can there be a difference between one dark green brassica with oblong leaves and another you ask?  Probably not much. But komatsuna doesn't have much mustard-y taste the way vitamin green does.  In fact, it's almost sweet!  

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.

Today in the greenhouse

There are lots of greens growing in the greenhouses right now.  I spend more and more time measuring growth rate.  Soon, I'll put all the data together, but keep putting it off since I'm so busy.  Here you can see outrageous lettuce in the foreground, vitamin greens on the side and bulls blood beets in the background.  Soon some of these will be ready to harvest!

Baby brassicas

It's now possible to tell the many varieties of greens apart because they have true leaves.  Clockwise from the top: white russian kale, chirimen hakarashi, pac choi, and red-violet pac choi.  Red-violet pac choi is my favorite right now.  The tinge of red on the outside of the leaves is just lovely.  I'm thinking of having a taste test once the greens reach harvest size - would anyone be interested?

Baby vitamin green

Information on vitamin greens seems to be the number one thing people are looking for when they come to this blog.  So I planted a few of my coveted seeds a few weeks before starting the variety trial to see what they were all about. 

Right now my plants are at the four leaf stage, which means they are just about perfect baby size for salad mix.  The picture above shows leaf number three and the beginnings of number four.

I tried a leaf and it tasted - green.  That might sound anti-climatic, but vitamin greens are known for being tender greens without a strong mustard-y taste.  Below is a seedling from the variety trial.  You can kind of see little hairs, or spines on the edges of the leaf.  I'm hoping these will disappear as the plant gets older, but I'm not sure yet.  Since the days are so short now they  won't be ready to harvest (and eat!) for a few more weeks.

Tapestry of seedlings

Photo Friday

Seedlings of bulls blood beet in the foreground, and tokyo bekana in the background.

What greenhouse one looks like.  Flats of spinach, lettuce and mizuna for the growth rate project in the foreground, and newly seeded flats for the variety trials in the background.

Today I planted . . .

Lettuce:

winter density

outrageous

Spinach:

giant

spargo

Mustards (B. juncea):

chirimen hakarashi

wasabina

komatsuna

ruby streaks

scarlet frills

Pac choi family (B. rapa var. chinensis):

red violet tatsoi

pac choi green

chinese pac choi (white stems)

tatsoi savoy

tatsoi

fun jen

Loose head chinese cabbage (B. rapa var. pelinensis):

tokyo bekana

vitaminna

vitamin green

Cole crops (B. oleracea)

red russian kale

white russian kale

Eruca:

arugula

Beta family:

rhubarb chard

bulls blood beet

Herbs:

cilantro

parsley

dill

cressida

chervil