Mizuna

Mizuna is the brassica that doesn't behave like the others. Most members of the cabbage family bolt at the first sign of sustained heat or skip a few waterings; mizuna tolerates both with more patience than you'd expect from a leafy green. The serrated leaves grow fast enough that you can harvest them at three weeks as baby greens, or wait another two weeks and cut full rosettes. Either way, the plant regrows from the crown and gives you a second round, sometimes a third.

You can start sowing mizuna four weeks before your last frost and keep succession-planting every two weeks through late spring, then pause during peak summer heat, and resume again in late summer for a fall crop. That flexibility makes it one of the more useful gap-fillers in a vegetable bed — a patch of mizuna can occupy the space between slower crops or follow an early harvest of radishes or peas. The mild peppery flavor works raw in salads, unlike some of the more assertive cooking greens, and the texture stays tender if you harvest before the leaves get much past six inches.

The main thing that tends to go wrong is bolting in prolonged heat above 80 degrees, especially if the soil dries out between waterings. Once the plant sends up a flower stalk, the leaves turn bitter and production stops. In warm climates, this usually means mizuna performs best as a spring and fall crop, with the summer months reserved for heat-tolerant plants. In cooler regions, you can often harvest through June or even July if you keep the soil consistently moist and provide afternoon shade.

Flea beetles are the other reliable problem. Tiny black beetles that chew dozens of small holes in the leaves, leaving them looking like lace. The damage is mostly cosmetic if you catch it early — the leaves are still edible — but a heavy infestation can stunt young plants. Row cover at sowing is the most effective prevention; once the beetles are established, removing badly damaged outer leaves and washing the rest tends to be more practical than trying to spray.

Harvest by cutting the outer leaves with scissors about an inch above the soil line, leaving the inner growing point intact. The plant will put out a new flush of leaves in about two weeks. If you're growing for baby greens, you can shear the whole patch at soil level and it will regrow — though the second cutting tends to be less uniform than the first. In fall, mizuna can handle light frosts without much damage, and the flavor often improves slightly after a cold night.