My Favorite Varieties: Asian Greens

Most veggie gardeners grow lettuce, spinach, and perhaps chard, kale or collard greens. Some are familiar with bok choy (spelled a dozen different ways). It’s the adventurous gardeners, or those from overseas, who include veggies such as Mizuna, Salt Wort, Fun Jen, or  Yu Choi Sum.

Since we used to live in Cupertino, California, where my local grocery store was Tin Tin #2, and the closest restaurant served the most incredible mu shu pork and lettuce wrapped chicken, it was only natural that I included some Asian imports in my garden as well.

I admit to having western taste buds, so what I recommend might seem all wrong to someone used to more exotic flavors. However, I like what I like. Maybe you will too.

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Bloomin’ Lettuce

lettuce-bolting_home_lah_5096Mid-summer has finally caught up with my spring garden. The lettuce I set out in early May has matured. We’ve eaten dozens of salads and shared the bounty with friends. The few heads that remain are beginning to stretch upwards. Sweet leaves are turning bitter. When the plants we grow for greens decide to grow flowers instead of leaves, we all that “bolting.”

I was hoping to stretch my lettuce harvest one more week, but a hail storm this afternoon sealed the fate of my spring lettuce patch. The chickens don’t give a cluck about the bitterness, so the now-shredded leaves are all theirs.

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