Mustard greens are seasonal leafy vegetables that can give you multiple harvesting of fresh leaves throughout the season. It contains Iron, Calcium, and Magnesium in enough percentage that is beneficial for your body to fulfill the manual requirements.
These mustard greens are easier to grow in containers even for beginners without any training. Just following the fundamentals of growing it, you can easily grow them in containers.
Let's understand the easiest method of growing mustard greens in a garden.
How to grow mustard greens in containers?
Mustard greens look green like spinach but slightly different from that. One can consume them raw or cooked but the most important part is their short harvesting time. Mustard greens become ready within 40 to 50 days for the first harvesting from the sowing date.
Let's understand its growing conditions, and then I'll tell you the easy method to grow them in your yard or containers.
Growing conditions of mustard greens
- Soil type
Ordinary garden soil is not bad for mustard greens if you mix compost with it and make it moist enough.
You don't need to transplant mustard green plants as they are quickly growing plants. So the extra work of preparing the soil for nursery beds for seed germination vanishes here. You can directly prepare soil mixture of garden soil and compost in a certain ratio to sow seeds directly.
- Climate conditions
Like most leafy vegetables, Mustard greens grow in cold climates but if you can maintain the temperature and humidity indoors, you can grow them indoors in warm climates.
They don't like heat, so growing mustard greens in warm climates in outdoor containers is not a good choice.
- Season of growing and harvesting
The spring is a good time to grow mustard greens in your backyard or containers. It becomes ready to harvest by the end of the spring and a few early weeks of summer.
Again, you can start sowing them in the early fall season if overcast conditions get away with time. The harvesting duration is very less about 40 to 50 days and 15 to 20 days for further harvesting. You can have multiple harvesting if you cut the leaves in the right manner.
- Sunlight and shade
Mustard greens like sunlight during the daytime and they can handle shade for some extra time because of no fruit bearing. During daylight, you can allow 5 to 7 hours of sunlight every day and 2 to 3 hours of partial shade for mustard green plants.
Other requirements to grow
Tools
- Small cultivator
- Planter tool
- Scissors or harvesting Knife
- Spraying bottle
Materials
- Compost
- Garden soil
- Green mustard seeds
Types of containers
If you have a family of 4 to 5 people, I'll suggest you choose either a manual-made wide container or multiple containers of a certain size. For minimum people, a container of size 40 inches long and 30 inches wide container is good enough that has 10 to 12 inches depth.
More people can increase the size of the container or they can have multiple containers of the same or similar size according to your need. Plastic or wooden containers are a very good choice for mustard greens plants in the garden as they are long-lasting and easy to shift from one place to another.
Method of growing mustard greens
Step 1- Prepare a soil mixture in a container
Let's prepare a soil mixture that is fertilized enough for mustard-green plants. Take garden soil and compost mixture in a 2:1 ratio respectively. Mix them well and spray some water for moisture.
Step 2- Sprinkle seeds evenly in the entire container
The better method of seeding mustard green seeds is sprinkling them evenly in a container. Open the seed packet and sprinkler evenly in the entire container considering you're maintaining a certain gap of 1 inch. Cover them with a very thin layer of the same soil mixture.
Step 3- Mustard green seeds germination
In a week, mustard seeds will start their germination in containers. You can keep them in sunlight for better growth. They'll start developing more leaves. These leaves remain round shaped initially and then turn into the wider and classic shape of mustard green leaves.
Step 4- Further growth and care
From here, you don't need to be rough with the plants instead, you should irrigate them regularly whenever the soil gets dry. Check the soil with your fingers if you have doubts and spray water accordingly.
Don't fertilize again unnecessarily as it is a short seasonal plant and don't bear either fruits or vegetable stalk.
Step 5- First harvesting of mustard green
Finally, after 40 to 45 days, your plants will grow 5 to 6 inches bigger leaves. Each plant will have multiple expanded leaves and you need precise harvesting so that other leaves can grow for further harvesting.
For that, you should cut the outer older leaves first at the bottom of each leave stalk. Use scissors or a harvesting Knife to cut them. Harvest according to your need and enjoy the mustard green leaves.
Step 6- Further harvesting
After the first harvesting, mustard green leaves don't take much time to grow again. Even within the next two weeks, they become ready for the next harvesting. Even you can eat them on daily basis as many plants as you have.
From a single mustard green plant, you can have multiple harvesting. So after enough harvesting, you can pick the plants up finally with the roots. Better to consume the last mustard green harvesting by cooking them.