Oriental Brassica Salad – Mizuna
€1.95
Description
Oriental Brassica Salad – Mizuna is a very special winter salad. Dark green, glossy, jagged leaves, ideal for a mixed salad.
Oriental brassicas are excellent from late summer onwards right through the winter if grown under protection. In spring they are very prone to fleabeetle attacks and are best avoided unless grown under a fleece.
Sowing:
Sow small amounts every 3 weeks from late June until late September. Seeds can be sown directly into the ground or into modular trays (5 seeds per cell) and planted out 4 weeks after sowing.
Spacing:
Between rows: 25cm
Between plants in the row: 25cm (5 seedlings per station)
Approx. seed count: 250
Growing Oriental salads :
Oriental Brassica Salad – Mizuna
Latin name:
Brassica juncea
Family:
Brassicaceae
Oriental brassica salads are starting to become very popular. They make an excellent addition to any salads and provide beautiful colour, shape and spice. There is an ever increasing range of varieties available and their real advantage is that they are very hardy. They may be the only crop that will survive a harsh winter. In fact they are at their best if grown during the autumn, winter and spring months in a polytunnel or greenhouse.
Mizuna and mibuna:
These two excellent winter salads should actually be in a class of their own. They are Brassica rapa var. nipposinica. They are both very attractive and delicious salads that can be grown successfully throughout the winter. Mizuna has glossy, serrated leaves and mibuna has very plain narrow leaves.
Soil and site:
Oriental Brassica Salad – Mizuna do well in any reasonably fertile soil.
Sowing:
The best time to sow oriental salads for planting into the tunnel or greenhouse is in late August until early October. I usually sow 5-7 seeds in each module. The modular transplants are ready for planting out about 5 weeks after sowing.
You can make more successional sowing from late January until April but they never perform as well as the autumn sowing. They are likely to bolt prematurely and also get attacked by the fleabeetle.
Spacing:
Between rows: 25cm
Between plants: 25cm (5 plants per station)
Plant care:
It is essential to keep the plot completely weed free and watered regularly.
Harvesting:
You can either harvest individual leaves as required or use the cut and come again method: cut the whole plant at about 5cm height from the soil level and the leaves will re-grow. This procedure can be repeated within the next two to three weeks.
Potential problems:
Oriental salads may suffer from all brassica diseases but the fleabeetles cause the most havoc. The symptoms are hundreds of tiny little ‘shotholes’ through the leaves that are caused by a tiny shiny black beetle that jumps off the leaves when disturbed. Only the autumn and late winter sowing will escape the fleabeetle. If you are determined to grow oriental salads in spring and summer you will have to cover the beds as soon as they are planted with a fine netting such as fleece or a fine Enviromesh.
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