Dark green leafy vegetables

[jamesey]

Hi,

I've decided... im going to grow dark green leafy vegetables because i can not buy any from anywhere it seems!!!

So as im going to grow my own.. i can be picky and choosy over the ones i want to eat ;)

Can anyone let me know the best leafy greens, ie, the most nutritious? I keep hearing the darker and bitter the greens the better, so if anyone can give me a few names of the darkest, most nutritous greens that would be fantastic!!

[Veganforlife]

My personal fav is Kale - LOVE it! Can't get enough of it. AND there are so many different varieties.

Next in line is spinach - love that too...

[rawstrength]

ALL leafy green vegetables, light, dark, or purple-hued are healthy. www.rareseeds.com www.seedsofchange.com and www.naturalgardening.com are where I buy my seeds from. Between these three sites, you should find at least 100 different varieties of greens to grow. Experiment and figure out what you like best, taste wise, because if it doesn't taste good then you won't enjoy eating it.
I'm so excited for you to start growing greens! Growing my own food has been one of the most rewarding and valuable things in my life. Be sure to post pictures of your beautiful garden!

[Veganforlife]

rawstrength - great links! Thanks!

[Frugal Raw]

I have grown kale (Siberian and Scotch Curly), collards, and chard. I attempted spinach, but the seeds never germinated. The Siberian kale was the best producer.

Check your growing zone when selecting the varieties.

Watch out for those cute little white butterflies - they lay eggs on greens and their larvae will munch it down in nothing flat. I researched organic products to cure that ill, and chose Dipel Dust, as I live on land that hasn't been farmed in years so the crop bug and varmint populations out here have made growning anything a challenge. Also, according to Martha Stewart, you can also use corn meal! I tried it, and it worked for a short while - but I was getting overrun.

Best of green luck to you!

[jamesey]

thx for the replies guys.. i should of mentioned, spinach IS the only thing i can buy. I will probably grow spinach though as i can only buy baby leaf spinach, and i'm thinking the bigger spinach leaves are more green! Kale I will definately grow also. I would like to grow probably around 6 different greens and plant them all at the same time. So with Kale and Spinach I have 2, i just need around 4 more... of the very best greens!!!! Any other suggestions?

[jamesey]

looks like i just missed your post frugal when i posted my last one!

collards and chards.. i'll grow these as well then! i'm assuming for example all varities of chards would be nutritionally almost as good as eachother.. so ive seen i can buy swiss white chard seeds or swiss red chard seeds, even yellow chard!!!

regarding these bugs or butterflies... im either going to grow these in the greenhouse, or if i do do it outside i have a huge net which i used to protect the strawberries/blackberries i grew in the summer, i could use thatwhich would stop the problem. we were growing beetroot up until recently, and i never knew the the beetroot leaves were edible and apparently very nutritious?? anyway, there were holes everywhere in the leaves of the whole line we grew!!! i did see some little sparrows hoping up to eat some, but maybe these butterfiles may of gone at the as well!

[islesgirl]

Hi jamesey. I planted a small garden this summer - last time I did that was about 27 years ago, so it was a challenge and a thrill. This is all I grew:
baby spinach (didn't grow well at all - must have done something wrong)
parsley (grew beautifully)
red leaf lettuce (grew well)
romaine (grew well)
swiss chard (grew well too)
beets (for greens also) (grew well)
carrots (for their tops also) (grew well)
collards (grew beautifully - but I don't like it much, though I don't taste it in smoothies when using lots of fruit with it)
kale (which grew the best!)

But it provided me with plenty of work - weeding, keeping bugs away, picking, washing, vacuum sealing and freezing for my green smoothies. I am 62 and live in Ontario, Canada. Haven't decided if I will do it again next summer. Probably though. Hope some of this helps.:)

[jamesey]

thanks islesgirl yes that does help a lot!!!

the only one that didnt grow well for you (the spinach) is the only one thats grown well for me when i did spinach last year. apart from spinach and kale i haven't grown other deep greens. so i'll probably have a go at a lot of the ones you've mentioned there. like you mentioned im too going to use these all for green smoothies.

regarding the swiss chard you said you grew, were these baby leaves or big leaves like the one in this picture:

http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/i/10202878lg.jpg

If you grew big leaves like above, how long did it take to grow from seed?

after looking at a few other posts around here, a green that seems to be mentioned a bit is Mustard Greens??What are these likes, and is it a problem if you are allergic to mustard?

[islesgirl]

Sorry, I know nothing about mustard greens - just that they are hard to find anywhere around where I live. As for the swiss chard - I really can't remember for sure - maybe 6 weeks? I do know that as soon as they looked good enough to put in a smoothie, I started to pick them. I will have this winter to do more homework on these things should I decide to try again in the spring. And I grew the red swiss chard. I don't know if there is any difference. :)

[coco]

baby greens! you can sprout sunflower, buckwheat, green peas and wheatgrass right in your kitchen. harvest every three weeks or so, or even ever couple of days if you stagger them. Yum!

[rawstrength]

baby greens! you can sprout sunflower, buckwheat, green peas and wheatgrass right in your kitchen. harvest every three weeks or so, or even ever couple of days if you stagger them. Yum!

I do this constantly and I love it :) .

[petaltothemetal]

I vote for chard as a must since it doesn't bolt easily and grows year round if you don't have a hard freeze. (Perpetual spinach is a kind of chard, too, that is especially hardy.) I have the best luck with the one-color stalked varieties. Like all red, all white. I keep buying packets of multi-hued types and they never produce as well, even though I have tried numerous suppliers. Still, I grow them anyway because I like cutting the stems up like colored confetti in my salads.

I also love asian greens, especially "spoon mustard" tah tsai and mizuna, which looks kind of like an extra serrated thin dandelion. I also like shiso, and purple mustard. And broccoli raab, which is usually grown for the tiny flowerettes but has tasty leaves, too.

I've tried growing strawberry spinach several years in a row with no luck, which is a shame because I love it. It's tasty and has adorable little red berries.

Oh, oh! And miner's lettuce or claytonia! Lovely little round leaves. Not terribly dark, but juicy and succulent. Which reminds me of purslane, a jade leaf looking plant you can eat. And sorrel, which tastes like lemony spinach, don't forget to plant sorrel! :D

[jamesey]

thx again guys for the replies!! chard is definately going to be the first thing i plant if its the easiest!! and thx petal for mentioning dandelion.. i forgot all about these but i'm gona have to get some dandelion seeds too!!

[Raw Angel Mom]

Free greens such dandelions or any eatable wild plant in our area.

Kale, spinach, parsley, sunflower sprouts, etc...