When Garth and I were first starting to learn to cook (which was conveniently right about the same time we were starting to be together), we ate a lot of mustard greens, which we both liked a great deal. Full of character and a little bit bitey, but easy to cook and good with any number of proteins and starches. But then we started to learn how to shop, too, and we stopped getting groceries at Fred Meyer and started getting them at the farmers’ markets and at Pike Place, (which is of course also a farmers’ market), or at Whole Foods as a last resort, and so we lost track of mustard greens. Apparently not many folks are growing them around here, and/or not many folks are growing them organically nation-wide.

So finding mustard green seeds in our preferred seed catalog, Territorial, was very exciting to both of us. I wasn’t very careful when I scattered them, and didn’t really scatter so much as pour directly onto the ground, apparently, as they represent the largest green lump here:


And tonight the green lump is smaller by at least 50-75 plants:



(Note our totally sweet wire harvest basket from the ever-awesome Path to Freedom and their new Urban Homestead journal! Note also the dirt still on the roots, which are still on the plants.)

My thinning accomplished approximately nothing, though, at least visually, though I failed to take a picture due to some pretty serious rain today. That will have to come later. But the end product was delicious sautéed greens with garlic, on brown rice, with quick pan-fried halibut cheeks from the market yesterday.