Plant · P-191

White Mustard

Sinapis alba

White mustard is the fastest-growing plant in this collection to actually put food on a plate: its seeds sprout into edible sprouts in about four days, making it a year-round tray crop that works even through the hottest stretch of summer when outdoor beds are between seasons. Grown as a cool-season cover crop, it's the mild, safe member of the mustard family - it suppresses germinating weed seeds and tricks nematode eggs into hatching with no host plant around, starving them out - without the harsher soil-fumigant chemistry of its sharper relatives. It's shallow-rooted and struggles through hot, dry weather, so it needs consistent moisture and a cool season to grow in. Its ground seed is the everyday yellow mustard condiment, and once its pods form, the seed and pods can poison livestock, so any grazing or cutting for feed has to happen before that point.