These are mustard seedlings that I’m growing to donate to the El Dorado County Master Gardener plant sale.  I have them in a little covered wagon sort of structure, over which I drape floating row cover to keep the grasshoppers, cabbage moths, aphids and ground squirrels from destroying the young plants.

I grew these from seeds that I collected from a gai choi (giant red mustard) plant, which is Brassica juncea and which is pictured here.

The only problem is, these don’t look at all like giant red mustard seedlings, which show their red even in their very first true leaves.

I did some research, and learned that the various common garden species in the genus Brassica, being juncea (mustard),  oleracea (kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards and kohlrabi), rapa (Chinese cabbage and turnip), and napus (canola and rutabaga) readily outcross.  That is, it’s possible to get a cabbage-mustard or broccoli-canola hybrid.  I think that these are collard-mustard hybrids.  I’m confident that they’ll be delicious, they just might not be red.