Asian salad greens

Origin & history

Asian salad greens cover several Asian leafy brassicas, most of them forms of Brassica rapa that have been grown as vegetables in Japan, China and Korea for centuries — mizuna, for instance, is documented in Japanese sources from the Edo period. They only reached German gardens in the 1990s, when seed catalogues and the first baby-leaf mixes brought them into home plots. Botanically they are the same species as the turnip and Chinese cabbage, which explains why they respond to long days in the same way: by flowering.

Varieties

Ready-made mixes and single varieties sit side by side on the seed rack. Mizuna has finely cut, mild leaves; red mustard (“Red Giant”) broad red-purple ones with a distinct heat; tatsoi forms a flat rosette of dark spoon-shaped leaves and stands in the bed longest of all. Almost all Asian greens are open-pollinated and the seed is cheap — you can sow generously and follow up every two weeks.

Care

An August sowing only germinates if the surface stays evenly moist; in heat it helps to water the drill before sowing and shade the row until the seedlings are up. Sow thinly and thin to about 10 cm — in a crowded stand the plants stay small and rot from below in a wet autumn. No extra feeding is needed: as a follow-on crop in a cleared bed, what the previous crop left behind is enough. Cut about 4 cm above the ground instead of pulling the plants and you get two or three cuts from the same roots.

What can go wrong

Spring sowings almost always bolt — these greens flower under long days, which is why the sowing window does not open until August. In a warm late summer flea beetles pepper the young leaves with holes; insect netting from the day of sowing plus a surface kept damp keeps them off reliably. They are brassicas, so they belong in the cabbage rotation: not straight after cabbage in the same bed, or you are feeding clubroot.

Harvest, storage & kitchen

The leaves taste best at about hand length; big old ones turn tough and their midribs go stringy. Cut across the whole stand with scissors, well above the heart, and it will regrow. Raw, the mustard note dominates; wilted briefly in a pan or stirred into finished soup it becomes restrained. None of it stores — pick what you need for the day.

Frequently asked questions

When do you sow Asian salad greens?

Direct into the bed from early August to mid-September, with picking from mid-September to the end of November. The window sits late on purpose: shorter autumn days keep the plants in leaf rather than in flower.

Are Asian salad greens winter hardy?

Yes, the leaves take frost in their stride, and the cold makes their mustardy bite milder. The picking window runs to the end of November; after that the plants often still stand but barely grow on, so pick portion by portion while the leaves are still gaining.

How long until the first harvest?

Around six weeks from sowing until the leaves are hand-length. As baby leaf you can cut after three or four weeks — each cut yields less, but the first one comes sooner.

Will Asian salad greens grow in a window box?

Yes, a box 15 to 20 cm deep is enough. In August such a box heats up and dries out fast, so keep it in part shade until the seedlings are up and check the surface daily. Later it can stand bright — frost on the balcony does it no harm, a dried-out rootball does.