How to Grow Mizuna (Japanese Mustard Greens)

Mizuna is a fast-growing Japanese mustard green grown for its feathery, peppery leaves. Also known as Kyona or Shui Cai, it’s excellent in salads when young and perfect for stir-fries, soups, and pickling when mature. It’s easy, productive, and ideal for gardens or containers.

Growing Mizuna From Seed

Mizuna is best sown directly into garden beds or containers, though it can be transplanted if handled gently.

• Germinates quickly
• Thrives in cool to mild conditions
• Slower to bolt than many leafy greens

When to Plant

• Warm climates: Sow year-round
• Spring: Fastest growth, ideal conditions
• Summer: Grow in part shade, keep well watered
• Winter: Grow in full sun, protect from frost

Autumn sowing also works well in warm regions.

We sow our seeds in spring as the weather warms up.

How To Plant The Seeds 12 Easy Steps

1. Prepare the soil by adding some compost and cow manure.
2. Seeds can be sown directly, if transplanting from seedlings, be careful not to disturb the roots when transplanting.
3. Sow the seeds directly, cover lightly with soil and space and thin them to 15 cm in the garden.
4. We suggest watering with a liquid seaweed fertiliser every two weeks. Make sure that the soil does not dry out, although this is not much of a problem in winter to spring.
5. If you are planing on harvesting the young tender leaves for salads, you can plant then much closer.
6. Seeds should be lightly covered with soil and watered in well.
7. In warm conditions germination will take 7-14 days, longer in colder conditions.
8. Keeps the seeds moist.
9. Fertilise with a liquid fertiliser every 2 weeks.
10. Pick off any dead foliage to prevent disease and Protect from snails and slugs.
11. Harvest as required, young leaves are best for salads.
12. At the end of the season, remove the plants and compost them.

How do you use Mizuna ?

Harvesting Mizuna

• Ready in ~40 days
• Pick leaves once large enough but before they get tough
• Harvest outer leaves first and leave the centre to regrow
• Or cut the whole plant just above soil level

• Young leaves = salads
• Older leaves & stems = stir-fries, soups, pickling

How to Use Mizuna

• Fresh in salads (young leaves)
• Stir-fried with garlic, sesame oil, soy, or teriyaki
• Added to soups, noodles, or rice bowls
• Mixed into omelettes or potato salad
• Traditionally pickled or served as ohitashi

Usually the young leaves are picked and added to salads. Older leaves and the stalks can be used in a stir fry. You can add it to pesto for a bit on tang. It is traditionally pickled and used as an appetiser.

Mizuna has a slightly peppery taste, mostly used stir fry, soups, often pickled and the young leaves can be added to salads.

It is usually cooked as this softens the texture and allow it to absorb the sauces used in cooking. You can also use Komatsuna, another popular Japanese vegetable.

Varieties

• Green Mizuna – mild, versatile
• Red/Purple Mizuna – spicier, more tang
• Early types: Early Mizuna, Tokyo Early
• Over 18 known varieties with different flavours and leaf shapes

Flavour: Mildly peppery, softens beautifully when cooked

Top Growing Tips

• Full sun in cool weather, part shade in heat
• Space ~20 cm apart for cut-and-come-again harvesting
• Can be grown densely as microgreens
• Perfect for balconies, courtyards, and containers
• Grows well between taller crops like tomatoes
• Best harvested at 10–12 cm (5 inches) for salads

Common Mizuna recipes include:

• Mizuna Simmered with Tofu and Dashi
• Ohitashi with Mizuna
• Mizuna Potato Salad
• Mizuna Salad with Miso Dressing
• Sauteed Mizuna with Garlic and Fish Sauce Recipe

Available in green and and also in a red/purple form it has a spicy tangy taste .

The simplest recipes include adding a good handful that has been chopped and wilted in a little soy or teriyaki sauce to a bowl of rice.

Add some garlic, sesame oil and a little shredded roast chicken, beef or fish and you have a meal.

Try tossing them in with potato salad or add them to an omelet.

More Japanese Style vegetables and Leafy Greens

To Buy Mizuna, try the following nurseries

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