My urban homestead Producing food on a city lot

My home area near the Rio Grande has an elaborate venous system of acequias, the irrigation ditches that move water out to farms and fields. Further south, they make local agriculture possible. Even now that my area is urbanized, the ditches are lifeblood. They maintain our water table, and the dirt maintenance roads along them are walking paths where we enjoy fresh air, exercise our canine companions, and encounter our neighbors. For me, there’s an added dimension. They are kept dry in the winter, and the east or south-facing side side of the banks are where the earliest greens appear. By scrambling to the bottom of the dry ditch and walking along the bottom, I can harvest greens growing halfway up the steeply sloping bank, where dogs can’t urinate.

The first plant to appear, often in February, is tumble mustard, also known as London rocket. It is a very hot member of the mustard family, and I don’t much care for it in any form, but the amazing John Slattery can tell you more about its culinary uses: https://www.desertortoisebotanicals.com/blogs/news/urban-foraging-for-london-rocket. Despite my disinterest in it for table use, I gather bushels of it for my chickens, who adore it. Within a couple of weeks I’m gathering eggs with the deep gold carotenoid-packed yolks that I associate with the growing season. So the ditch banks benefit my chickens directly and me indirectly in the earliest weeks of the season.

This week the dock plants on the ditch banks have leaves 6-8”long and are ready to harvest. I made a greens cake based on green onions and dock greens, using five eggs and five egg yolks for an 8” square pan. The flavorings were thyme and black oil-cured olives. The cheese was a grass-fed cheddar. It was utterly delicious but needed a side salad to brighten up the plate and provide even more greens. Enter blue mustard.

By this time the banks have large patches of blue mustard, Chorispora tenella. It’s shown above in flower, which is when you are most likely to recognize it for the first time. I haven’t seen it in foraging books and I have no clue why, because it’s delicious. The young leaves and stems are tender when gathered less than 6-8” high, and have a delightful tiny nip of the characteristic mustard flavor without getting carried away. They are fine cooked but lose their character. Salad is the way to go. Look for dense patches where the plants are shading each other’s stems, and cut off the top 3” with scissors. If the plant is forming buds it is past its tender best and should be left to seed itself for next year. Wash and dry your blue mustard, combine with a few other mild tender shoots ( I used bladder campion shoots,) dress with a good red wine vinaigrette, and dinner is served.

I have moved some blue mustard into my yard too, which germinates later than the acequia population and extends the season a little. It’s pretty in the blooming stage but gets weedy and unattractive when forming seed pods. This is one for the weed patch, not the front yard.