Plant · P-330

Shungiku

Glebionis coronaria

Shungiku, or garland chrysanthemum, is a leafy green grown for its young shoots and stems, cooked or raw, in a cut-and-come-again harvest ready about 35 days after sowing. In warm weather it turns bitter fast - anything above about 77 F pushes it toward bolting - so it is really a fall-through-spring crop, sown once as the weather cools and again as it warms back up, then pulled rather than nursed once the first hot spell hits. The flower petals are a lesser-known second harvest, eaten raw or blanched into salads with the bitter center skipped - reason enough to let a few plants bolt each spring instead of pulling every one.