The Mustard Green Invasion

The high yield veg for this year’s garden appears to be mustard greens. Planted by accident, they appear to be overtaking the garden. I’ve never eaten nor cooked with this hearty leaf, and I’m nervous about its vivacity and disregard for its neighbors. It’s my summer challenge: to figure out 101 creative ways to use mustard greens.

So as not to loathe them when they’re still available to harvest in the fall, my mind is spinning with thoughts of mustard greens. They may become my daily meditation, a part of some spiritual exercise to train my directed attention to place itself somewhere quietly and deliberately, undisturbed. A leafy green for this? Seriously? I say it mostly in sarcasm because I am amused at how much attention these mustard greens are getting from me.

I had hoped for an inordinate and unmanageable amount of tomatoes. I wanted to be the can queen. I wanted to store up for winter every version of canned tomatoes that are conceivable: stewed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomatoes with garden basil, and maybe even my own tomato ketch-up. I had these plans, and the mustard greens may change them.

I’m looking at them now, blowing blithely in the wind, little yellow flowers sprouting at the top singing:

I’m gonna go to seed soon
wait and see
my pretty little yellow bloom
will sprout up green
I’m gonna go to seed soon
wait and see
these flowers are only the beginning
of another set of leaves

See how they torment me?