MUSTARD GREENS for eating COOKED:

Very easily-grown greens for cooking (like chard, spinach etc) from the mustard family.

Raw they are spicy - so although it is nice to put small quantities raw in salads - they're mostly used cooked. When you cook them the heat disappears, leaving a rich, full flavour, with just a little spicy zing.  They are especially useful because they grow so well in cooler weather.

Apart from the great taste, an advantage of these is that they are left alone by many pests - they're only attractive to animals that know how to cook!

Dragons Tongue

A great new mustard green. It has huge leaves with amazing wiggly white ribs and purple highlights. 

It is mildish when young and small quantities can be added raw to salads. As it gets bigger it gets hotter raw, and then is really nice cooked, leaving just a slight spicy tingly richness in the flavour. 

We grow this every year using it young in winter salads then as it matures cooking it in stirfries, curries and as a side-dish.

Sweet when young, very big and productive.

400 seed, organic. £

"Nine Headed Bird" Cunning Greens

The name in Chinese is 'Jiu Tou Niao', which means "Nine Headed Bird". It is an old heirloom variety of mustard leaf from South China, with green serrated leaves, & is prized locally for the texture and flavour of the greens.

We were recently sent more detail by Dr Grabowska-Zhang (see the feedback box below) This is a good mustard green and we hope you enjoy growing it.

Hot and spicy raw, tasty and mild cooked. There are many local varieties of this sort of green yet to be discovered in the West.

200 seed, organic. £

Green Wave

Big green leaves with frilly edges - Green Wave is great because it not only thrives in cool weather, but is also relatively tolerant of heat, so can be sown both in spring & after midsummer.

All in all, a hardy and easily grown plant, making masses of cooking greens. When it finally does run to seed, the flower shoots are very nice cooked like sprouting broccoli, too!

Hot and spicy raw, tasty and mild cooked.

200 seed, organic. £

Osaka Purple

This has huge oval leaves that are purple and green with white veins. They make a big rosette and eventually a heart as well.

We like this because it is cold-hardy - sow it after midsummer for use overwinter.

This strain was specifically bred for home gardeners. It is particularly vigorous, and cold-hardy, growing on well even in less than ideal weather.

Very spicy raw, tasty and mild cooked.

about 180 seed, organic. £

'Golden Frills' salad mustard green

A whole new class of vegetable here – a unique salad leaf from a cross between a kale and mustard. 

The plants make large but delicately lacey leaves with a golden-green colour, and a sweet, but only slightly spicy flavour.

It goes well in salads as the lacey leaves add a delicate bit of ‘zing’. Can also be cooked as a green.

200 seed, organic. £

Wa Wa Ga Choi Stem Mustard (a.k.a. "The Thing")

So, definitely our strangest vegetable, a unique sort of plant from Szechuan in China, where it is famous. How on earth to describe it?

The stem swells up like a kohl-rabi but making lots of bumps rather than one big one. The stem and leaves can be used sliced in salads, cooked, pickled or stirfried. The flavour is delicious, savoury and somewhat - but not very - spicy. It's also excellent as a kimchi-style ferment with garlic, ginger & chilli.

It makes leaves quite quickly, say 4 or five weeks to a reasonable plant size; then it makes the swollen stem which should be ready roughly 3-4 months later.

A fantastic crop to grow overwinter for harvesting when other crops are scarce.

340 seed, organic. £