Bakers sent me Mizuna seeds last year with my order! Like you, I didn't have a clue, so I sowed some seeds early indoors in 4" pots to see what would happen. They looked like this in no time at all. I removed leaves, chopped and sauteed them in olive oil with minced garlic, then used it as filling for omelettes. They were delicious that way -- a little like escarole in texture. I tried to grow them outdoors but every time the seedlings got a few inches high, the squirrels would dig them up. grrrr.

Yes!! It is a spicy green somewhat akin to arugula. Great in salads or you can add to stir fries, soups, etc. Almost in the same way you would use spinach, but with more 'bite'.

Yes, eaten. Eeew. For those of us with the taste bitter genes, mizuna is awful, More bitter and less tasty than dandelion greens. Not anything I want to repeat. But if you don't taste bitter in chard, kale or egglant, you might love it.

I’ve grown it and eaten it. I added it to salads.

My mizuna looks very different. This is my winter mizuna under LED lights.

Nice in salads, stir fry dishes.

Nice looking garnish.

Very good for health - "It has been shown to promote several health benefits, including promoting healthy bones, improving the immune system, promoting eye health, reducing cancer risk, and supporting blood clotting processes. "

I grow it and enjoy it year round. Very easy to grow.

dcarch

It is sold in the produce section of a grocery near me that carries a lot of Southeast Asian food, but I have never tried it.

I grow early and summer. Got a couple early out in the winter bins that are almost ready to wake up and harvest, and the first half dozen seedlings of early set to half harden off next week.

It is a favorite microgreen/baby green for me. I find it to have a mild mustard taste. Very fast growing.

Mine looks more like dcarch's, but the stems are pink. I like it a lot in salads and use it chopped up in soups or I just cook it like any other green. I find it much less bitter than mustard and the pink stems look pretty in a plate of leaves.

I grow it every year, it's quick to grow, very cold tolerant and comes right back when I cut it.

It will bolt in the heat, but not as quickly as some greens, and seems to appreciate the shadier side of my garden, next to the apple trees, which creates some afternoon shade.

Annie

I'll take plllog's warning about the taste, and try planting one or two seeds in the house like party_music to see if I want to be bothered with more. I don't care much for bitter.

Thanks to all for your descriptions and suggestions on growing and eating.

I can't stand bitter greens (or anything really) and yet I like mizuna. Never had it be anywhere near as bitter as a dandelion green and contrary to gardengal's descriptor I wouldn't call it spicy either. It is a very mild asian green.

The plant in party_music's photo looks like gai choy to me, not mizuna. While there are different varieties and different colors of mizuna they all have thin stems and deeply lobed leaves. The "regular" green mizuna looks the same as in dcarch's photo.

Rodney

This is what they sent me. I planted two pots and I'll see if I like it. It's suppose to grow fairly quickly. I do wonder what mine will look like.

Growing conditions count for a lot, and I might have been given some with a higher level of the compound my fussy genes recognize as poison. It's not like I've done a wide sample. If you don't have two alleles of the gene, it'll taste a lot better, I'm sure. ;)

Per Baker Creek's website, the description for Beni Houshi mizuna says that it is a "recently developed open-pollinated variety" and at the end it says "Please note, you will occasionally see a few plants with smooth off-type leaves."

Sounds to me like either the variety hasn't been entirely stabilized or their seed source got the seed mixed with another asian green.

Rodney

This is what this type of Mizuna looks like now overwintered. I had wondered if there was seedling variation. Only the rounded leaf green form grew into Winter, so I wonder if it grows differently with growing conditions.

My pkt was also Beni Houshi Mizuna, so that means my test indoor plant had the ”off type” smooth leaves that Rodney described, and it’s just like Robert’s. lol!