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There is no single moment when mustard is ready. There is a sliding scale, and where you cut on it decides what you can do with the crop. Under four inches (10 cm) the leaf is mild enough for a mixed salad and mild enough that most people who dislike mustard will eat it happily. Between four and eight inches (10 to 20 cm) it is assertive raw and best used as a component rather than the base of a salad. Above eight inches it wants heat: braising, wilting into a soup, or a long cook that turns the sharpness into something round and savoury.
That progression happens whether or not the plant is growing well, so keep cutting. Baby leaf beds are ready twenty-one to twenty-eight days after sowing and go past their best within a week or so of that. Full-size plants take forty-five to sixty days to reach picking size and will then hold for several weeks in cool weather.
Cut in the morning when the leaves are full of water and before the sun has warmed them. Leaves picked in the afternoon heat are limper, hotter and store poorly.
| Leaf length | Days from sowing | Flavor | How to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 to 4 in (5 to 10 cm) | 21 to 28 | Mild, gentle heat in the aftertaste | Raw, as the base of a salad |
| 4 to 6 in (10 to 15 cm) | 30 to 40 | Distinctly hot raw | A handful mixed into milder leaves |
| 6 to 10 in (15 to 25 cm) | 40 to 55 | Strong, peppery, some bitterness | Wilted quickly with fat and salt |
| Over 10 in (25 cm) | 55 plus | Very strong, tough midrib | Braise; strip the midrib out first |
The weather changes the flavor more than the calendar does
The same plant tastes different in two seasons, and this is the single most useful thing to understand about growing mustard. Hot dry weather drives the pungency up sharply, so a bed picked in a summer dry spell can be almost inedible raw even at baby leaf size. Cold weather does the reverse: after several hard frosts the plant converts starch to sugar in the leaves, the sharpness softens into something closer to warmth, and full-size leaves that were harsh in autumn become genuinely good.
So the picking plan changes with the season. In warm weather, cut small and cut often, and expect to cook most of it. In late autumn and winter, let the plants get bigger than you otherwise would, because size is no longer working against you.
This also means a crop you have written off can come back. A stand that tasted brutal in a hot spell will taste noticeably better after a week of cool damp weather, with no intervention at all.
Cut so the plant keeps going
Baby leaf beds are sheared, not picked. Take scissors and cut the whole band about an inch (2.5 cm) above soil level, leaving the growing points intact. In good conditions the band regrows for a second and often a third cut, at roughly two-week intervals. The second cut is usually the best one; by the third the leaves are narrower and hotter, and it is time to resow.
Full-size plants are picked leaf by leaf from the outside. Snap or cut each leaf at the base of its stalk, close to the crown, and never strip more than a third of the plant at once. Leaves left as stubs rot back into the crown and take the plant with them.
If a plant has bolted or you need the bed, take the whole thing at once by cutting through the stem just below the crown. Whole plants cut this way keep better than a bag of loose leaves.
- Wash and dry immediately Rinse in cold water, spin or shake dry thoroughly, and get the leaves cold. Wet leaves in a bag go slimy within two days; dry cold leaves keep five to seven days.
- Keep large and small leaves apart Store salad-size and cooking-size leaves in separate bags. Mixing them means you either cook the tender ones or serve the fierce ones raw by accident.
- Blanch and freeze the surplus Full-size leaves freeze well after two minutes in boiling water and a plunge into ice water. Squeeze dry, freeze in portions, and use them in cooked dishes through the winter.
Write down the date of each first cut alongside the sowing date for that row. Days from sowing to first cut in your own soil, recorded across a few seasons, is a far better planning number than anything printed on a packet.
Harvesting after bolting
A plant that has begun to flower is not finished. The flower shoots, picked while the buds are still tight and green, are the best eating the plant offers: sweeter than the mature leaves, with the heat present but rounded, and good raw or given thirty seconds in a hot pan. Pick them like sprouting broccoli, snapping the top four to six inches (10 to 15 cm) of stem, and the plant will send out side shoots for another two or three pickings.
Once the flowers open, quality falls away quickly and the stems turn woody. At that point either pull the plant, or make a deliberate decision to leave one or two to set seed. The leaves at this stage are too hot and too fibrous to be worth the space.