Chinese mustard greens – seed saving

The Chinese mustard green plant

Late last year, I attended a gardening workshop conducted by the Centre for Nature Literacy and Enterprise. One of the activities was to sow a potful of Chinese mustard greens with a faster growing partner. It meant that we had a nice memento that lasted for many weeks after the workshop, and in my typical manner, one mustard green plant was left long enough to flower and go to seed.

I like it when plants do that, because it means that the seeds produced are from a plant that has grown and thrived in our garden, and should be more resilient with the next generation (as long as they’re not GMO). So, I happily left the plant alone to let the seeds develop fully before harvesting them. This meant waiting for the pods to turn brown and dry out a little. After that, it was a matter of carefully removing the pods – and I say “carefully” because they could split open if dry enough, scattering precious tiny seeds – then bringing them to a safe place to harvest.