What to do THIS WEEK On your fruit & veg plot
These quick and easy plants always give you a crop
Vegetables that are quick and easy to grow are always welcome. Oriental vegetables such as pak choi, mizuna, Chinese cabbage, mustard greens and choy sum may sound complicated and confusing but, whichever you choose to grow, they need similar conditions and can be used in the kitchen in similar ways.
They all tend to have crisp, crunchy leaves and stems with a mild mustard taste.
What makes them perfect to grow at home is all parts of them can be eaten. So if they don’t make the perfect rosettes of leaves you expect, you can pick off individual leaves and even if they run to seed and produce flower stems, they can be eaten, too. Young leaves can be added to salads and mature plants stir fried or steamed.
All grow fast and need a fertile, moist soil. This makes them perfect for patio growing. You can sow them direct in large patio pots of compost and thin them as they grow; the thinned seedlings are great in salads. Keep them moist at all times for the sweetest leaves and to prevent flowering. In hot, dry conditions the leaves may be tough and mustards in particular will get very hot!
They’re not hardy but will last well into autumn if grown in a polytunnel. The key to success is to sow in summer, after the middle of June. If sown in spring the plants nearly always run to seed and won’t make large plants.
TOP TIPS
Start off spinach
Sow shallow drills of spinach or perpetual ‘spinach beet’ seed now in pots or a veg bed to keep yourself supplied with lovely fresh leaves this summer. Spinach is easy to sow and grow, favouring cool temperatures with light shade and f
