What it is
Mustard Greens (Brassica juncea) is in the Brassicaceae (Mustard) family. Peppery, fast, and cold-hardy — a Southern staple green that gets milder with frost.
How to grow it
It wants full sun to part shade, water it even, and give it rich soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0–7.5. Space plants about 6–8 in apart. Expect roughly 30–50. Cool-season.
How it's used
Mustard Greens is used: cooked or raw young.
🔎 How to identify it
- Frilly or broad green/red leaves
- Quick-growing rosette
- Yellow flowers when bolting
Edibility
How to grow & propagate mustard greens
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate mustard greens
The cabbage family is a cool-season seed crop. Start the heading types (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) in trays 5–6 weeks before you want them in the ground; sow the fast roots and greens (radish, turnip, mustard, arugula) straight into the bed. They all cross with each other readily, so if you're saving seed, only let one variety of a given species flower at a time.
Growing mustard greens in Texas
Give it full sun to part shade and rich soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
This is a cool-season crop. On the Texas Gulf Coast that means your real windows are fall and late winter, not summer — sow as the heat breaks in September–October and again in late winter, and you'll harvest through our mild winters while the rest of the country is frozen out.
Keep moisture even, especially while it's young — deep, less-frequent soaks build better roots than a daily sprinkle.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly 30–50 before you're harvesting. Harvest at peak and keep harvesting — most vegetables produce harder the more you pick, and one left to over-mature tells the plant its job is done. The part you're after: leaves.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.