I've been experimenting this winter with greens in a raised bed covered by a low tunnel with two sheets of light plastic. Just this last Sunday I clipped off all the greens out of fear (driven by the weatherman) of this weeks weather. I should mention all of this is 45 minutes from where I live. Last night I had great Bloomsdale spinach from there and am taking the turnip and mustard greens to work (my wife is from Montana and never heard of greens until we got married). I haven't had any luck with tatsoi, but I just bought seeds to have another go. I've planted more of all those greens, plus some quinoa and collards in my greenhouse and hope I can have a successful transition to the farm with the transferable plants.

Amy, Over the course of many years, I've grown just about all the non-lettuce greens you can grow here. Commenting on the flavor of individual ones would take forever because of all the variation and also because each person's taste buds are as individual as they are. My taste buds could perceive the flavor of a specific variety of a specific green in one way and your taste buds might perceive the flavor of the same item in a different way. So, as far as flavor goes, I think you just have to experience it for yourself since it can vary so much with each variety of each type of green. Tim and I don't even necessarily like the same exact greens. I like milder ones an he likes stuff that is stronger and more robust.

Mache' is a cool-season crop and its seed goes dormant and won't sprout at temperatures above about 70 degrees. Maybe even at 68 or 69. That's why the seed often is sown in fall or winter. So, if you've tried it indoors or in a greenhouse, try germinating it outdoors or try winter-sowing it so that it will sprout whenever the temperatures are right for it.

We can eat most any green and like it, but I am not a big fan of dandelion greens (Tim is) and that includes both regular weedy dandelions and the more bitter (at least to my taste buds) Italian ones.

I like cold-season greens more than the hot-season substitute ones. Some of the hot-weather ones have a texture that I just don't care for. Malabar spinach is okay, but kinda slimey (like okra) when cooked. In my garden, it seems like it attracts aphids even when no other plants have them. The red-stemmed Malabar spinach is really gorgeous to look at, and not bad as a fresh green if you pick the leaves small. The aphids may add a little crunch to it though. I found out I didn't like amaranth leaves as a warm-season green either. You just have to try different things and see which ones appeal to your taste buds. If you like sour or tangy greens, arugula and sorrel probably would appeal to you.

With cress, my ground stays too dry for watercress, but upland cress does just fine. I have early greens seeds to sow (any day now) of upland cress, curly cress salad burnet and creasy greens, among others. I could have sown them all in August or September for a winter crop but there wasn't much rain in those months and I wasn't in the mood to have to irrigate all winter.

Most of the asian-type greens have a sharper, tangier, more spicy or robust flavor than the usually mild lettuce greens we so often grow up eating in this country....so they compare more to mustard greens than lettuce greens, if that helps any. With most of them, frost tones down the sharpness of their flavor and makes it more mild---just like what happens with kale.

Cochise, I have had more luck with tatsoi from a fall planting than a winter or spring one. I'm not sure why but think we may warm up too quickly here in spring. It's like going from 0 to 60 mph in the blink of an eye some years, and that is hard on cool-season greens. About the time I think they are starting to look really great in spring, we get hot and they start to bolt.

Dawn

I'm really liking my bloomsdale spinach, too. My beds have a plastic windbreak wrapped around pvc hoops, and if it going to go down below about 28 I cover the beds with plastic tarps. We were out fighting the wind earlier, as I put extra frost blankets down in the beds. Now the stupid sun has come out. Still, it is only 19 out. Next year I want somethiing like agribon, that I wouldn't have to take on and off so much. DH wouldn't let me bring in the brussels sprouts, he thinks they are too small.

That reminds me, have you seen the cross between brussels sprouts and kale? Kalets? I'm not sure about that one.

Dawn, I agree, I don't care for dandelions either. We picked a bunch last spring and they are tough and bitter. I have eaten lambs quarters, but they are best in early spring, I think, while still young. Amaranth...I thought about growing it for seed, and because it is supposed to be a pretty plant, but it is a pretty big plant if I find I don't like it. And I believe it crosses with the weed I can't get rid of.

I may have to move my mache out of the green house. There are a bunch of things to winter sow, if I would just get my act together...

just seen a cross between broccoli and kale and broccoli and asparagus they sound cool but we'll see.
I've tried growing strawberry spinach 2 years now with bad results in germination think I'll wait till next year to try that again cuz I'm out of seeds but grow Malabar and like it
good luck deciding I never can.
Tree

Amy, I have tried so hard to grow dandelions for Tim because he loves them. I don't think it really is the dandelions themselves---it is the memory of eating them with his now-deceased father in Pennsylvania, when the dandelions first sprouted and truly were one of their first signs of spring. It seems ridiculous that I cannot get dandelions to grow in my garden, but they sprout everywhere in our lawn. However, in the lawn they stay really small with few leaves, and he isn't interested in eating the flower stalk. I did find I have better luck growing them by sowing seed in fall than in late winter or early spring.

My dad liked lambs quarters but never could persuade the rest of us to like them. I think lambs quarters truly helped his family survive the Dust Bowl years when he was a kid, so he always kept a couple of plants growing out by his compost pile in the far NW corner of our yard when I was growing up. Every time he picked and ate weeds, we kids just shook our heads because we couldn't imagine why anyone would want to eat weeds. I fight lambs quarters like crazy here. I did find a good use for them this summer. Grasshoppers love them so I left a few growing near the compost pile for the hoppers, hoping it would lure them away from the garden. I'm not sure if it worked, but the grasshoppers did eat the lambs quarters before they came into the garden and devoured everything else.

I love Amaranth and grow all kinds of it but mainly just for fun. I love to cut the big flower heads in shades of green, red, gold and orange and stuff them into an old milk can beside the barn door for a lovely autumn arrangement. It reseeds vigorously in our clay so I'd consider it highly invasive but I like to grow it anyway. I mostly use the plants themselves as a compost crop. An amaranth patch can provide tons and tons of raw material for compost piles. Nothing is prettier than a big patch of tall amaranth plants flowering with a patch of sunflowers in bloom either beside them or in front of them. I just hack back the amaranth plants practically to the ground whenever I feel like it and drag them all to the compost pile. New leaves sprout within days and it grows like mad again. Sometimes I leave plants with seed heads standing in the winter for the wild birds to eat in winter. I am pretty sure that no amaranth plant I've grown ever has died for any other reason except for freezing in autumn. In the summer time, they simply won't die. That's one reason I love them so. The leaves can look pretty ratty in extreme drought, but they don't die.

I believe that the tallest my amaranth plants ever get is about 8' tall, but that's not a problem because I generally plant them on the north side of the garden where there's nothing nearby for them to shade out. I'm thinking about planting amaranth in 50% of the back garden this year as a cover crop/green manure crop. That soil back there needs a lot of improvement and I need to just grow stuff back there for a couple of years whose only purpose is to improve the soil. I'm hoping that the voles that plague the sandy parts of the back garden don't want to eat the amaranth plants. Last year we had the fewest volunteer amaranth plants ever, so I think I must have mulched too heavily the last couple of years and the birds found and ate all the seeds before they worked their way down below the mulch.

Tree, Some of those new plant crosses are really interesting. I haven't had much luck with strawberry spinach either. I had good luck with it the first or second time I grew it, but not much luck since then.

Dawn

My thermometer said a low of 6 last night. Stuff in the beds looks kind of sad. I think my lettuce are goners. Time for alternate salad ideas. :( . Things in the greenhouse seem to have survived. They just aren't growing. I have 5 baby peppers on the Czeck. Black pepper in the bedroom window. It has the prettiest lavender flowers. I think I will order some cold weather greens to see what I can get gping for early spring.

You make a good case for amaranth, Dawn. What about comfrey, it is suposed to be a good compost and mulch plant with deep roots. Everything in my yard must be boxed in somehow or DH takes it out with the mower or weed wacker. I would like to plant a screen along the east side of the yard. It shouldn't effect the garden as there are no beds that close. There is a drainage ditch east of the yard. Technically we own it, but the city "maintains it. When we moved here the previous owner had fruit trees and grapes planted outside the fence. Over the years they either were cut down by the city or died. There is something not right with that side of the yard. I don't know if the city has used herbicide or if there is some kind of "fill" under it that is somehow retarding growth. I have a wisteria growing on the fence that should be much bigger. It is pretty, but I understand they can be invasive, and this one is not growing like that. So my thought is invasive might be a good choice. I would like to put bamboo, sunflowers and/or sorghum along the fence. Just have to figure out how to keep the bind weed out of it.

Tree, I was thinking about the broccoli asparagus cross myself. Pinetree has a broccoli mix, too, so I could get several different kinds. I don't know about broccoli in the spring, though, I was hoping mine would survive and give me some sprouts in spring, but it seems unlikely now.

Amy, I am trying the Pinetree broccoli mix this year. I have been growing PackMan in the Spring but decided to try something new. Hopefully my temps will stay cool enough, long enough, for a good harvest. I am hoping to spread out the harvest a little.