Brassica Vegetable

Now that my greenhouse is ready, I am embarking on planting leafy vegetables without the use of chemical herbicides or pesticides.  My latest experiment is in planting sawi (choy sum) and kailan, both of the Brassica family.  I love both this vegetables hence my choice of what I would like to start my vegetable project in the greenhouse was a no-brainer.  The sawi has a vivid green leaves whilst the kailan has a slightly bluish-tint to the green leaves.  The stems also differ with the sawi stems being a lighter, milky green whilst the kailan has a dark green stem. 

I started with seeding in beds and it took about 5 days for the little plants to start appearing.  Before seeding, I had prepared these beds carefully, breaking the soil and adding organic compost.  I love the feel of the rich and organic soil. 


Choosing to grow these vegetables as naturally as possible meant that a lot more effort was required.  Freequent manual weeding was required to ensure that the vegetables didn't have to compete with the weeds for nutrients and water.  I also checked the leaves for any bugs - especially those leaf-eating ones and manually removed them.  Daily watering was required, sometimes two times a day, depending on the moisture in the soil.  Being blessed with having a clean water source, without any man-added chemicals, I was further assured of limiting polutants to my vegetables.

I have planted the vegetables in stages to ensure relatively constant supply, especially for my family and own consumption, with the remaining sold at my Sunday morning stall.
These leafy vegetables are best harvested either very early in the morning, just after Suboh, or late in the afternoon/early evening - just before Maghrib.  This ensures that the vegetables remain fresh longer.  Once harvested, I keep the roots moist to maintain its freshness until I cook it or take to market.

Both the sawi and kailan are rich in nutrients including iron, calcium, vitamin C, Bs and trace elements and minerals.  It is best cooked lightly or can be eaten raw for maximum nutritious values.  It can be an addition to salads. There are many benefits of these tasty vegetables:

• The cholesterol-lowering ability of these steamed greens is in their ability to bind bile acids in the digestive tract. When bile acid binding takes place, it is easier for the bile acids to be excreted from the body. Since bile acids are made from cholesterol, the net impact of this bile acid binding is a lowering of the body's cholesterol level. It's worth noting that steamed mustard greens (and all steamed forms of the cruciferous vegetables) show much greater bile acid binding ability than raw mustard greens.
• With its glucosinolates which are phytonutrients that provide us with unique health benefits because they can be converted into isothiocyanates (ITCs) that have cancer-preventive properties.
• The cancer protection we get from these greens may be largely related to two special glucosinolates found in this cruciferous vegetable: sinigrin and gluconasturtiian. Sinigrin can be converted into allyl-isothiocyanate (AITC) and gluconasturtiian can be converted into phenethyl-isothiocyanate (PEITC). Both AITC and PEITC have well-documented cancer-preventive and anti-inflammatory properties.

A simple but healthy vegetable dish would be stir-fried sawi with garlic where you can use olive oil or good vegetable oil and fry the garlic until soft before adding the stems of the sawi.  Once the cut stems are soft, just add the leafy portion of the sawi and salt to taste, and toss for about a minute and it is ready.

For the kailan, my favorite is kailan with salted fish.  I use the SHL salted fish.  First I would fry the cut salted fish until crispy.  Then I would use the same oil, albeit in reduced portion, to fry chopped red or yellow onions and garlic.  When they are soft, I add the stems of the kailan, cook until soft and then add the cooked salted fish along with the leaves of the kailan.  No additional salt required.

There are so many ways to consume this vegetable - can be added to your nasi goreng, mi goreng, mi rebus - it is limited by your imagination. So with its great taste and healthy benefits, try it - you may enjoy it :)