Plant · P-188

Mustard Greens

Brassica juncea

Mustard greens grow fast, ready to cut in as little as 30 days, with a peppery flavor that runs from mild to hot and gets sharper, not worse, once the plant bolts in heat. Beyond the kitchen, chopping the whole plant and digging it straight into moist soil releases compounds that suppress several major soil diseases, working as a natural fungicide for whatever bed is planted after it. It also pulls lead and cadmium out of contaminated soil faster than almost anything else that does the job. The one rule that matters: never grow it ahead of another brassica, since it shares the same clubroot disease and would spread it rather than break the cycle.