An experiment with mustard

I adore mustard. Hot English on grilled meat, dijon in dressings, wholegrain on sandwiches (or anything really). I use mustard seed in pickling and mustard powder in many dishes, from bolognese to curry paste.

Unbelievably, I have found lately that I have an excess of room in my side garden bed (bed E). This bed gets only morning sun, and recently I pulled out a bunch of things that haven’t thrived in this year’s lack of sunshine. This led to me pondering what I wanted to plant there – it needs to be quick growing because I’m running out of time before the winter crops need to go in.

I’ve had a lot of luck growing coriander for seed, so I thought I’d try growing mustard for seed too.

Now here’s the experimental part. I only have organic mustard seed in the kitchen, and no seed purchased for planting. But since when have I been hampered by convention? J and I took out the mustard seed from the kitchen and liberally sprinked it in the bed. We then covered it with seed raising mix and watered it in.

Now my plan is that the seed will germinate and the mustard plants will bolt to seed within 60 days or so (being mid-summer). I will then be able to use the seed for powder and for fermenting into wholegrain mustard.

On the other hand it is quite likely that it won’t even germinate, but I’m thinking positive.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress.