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  • From: Tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Re: Black musttard seeds, cultifation, source etc.
  • Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 22:42:15 -0700

Bill Jones wrote:

Thanks so much for going to this effort. "Crescent Bloom" is a website where they're selling a book called "The Compleat Botanica" but no plants or seed. I've held the greatest hope for San Marcos, but as of now they're out of stock. Sheffield's looks good, but seeds require stratification and scarification, they say. Lotusland sounds like a wonderful place to visit, but not really commercial. I found this plant under the name "Toona sinensis" at Cistus Nursery in Oregon, even, but it's the same story: out of stock. River Rock Nursery (also in Oregon) says they're having trouble propagating their cuttings. Still searching for a plant...

Maybe you can help solve the black mustard mystery (Brassica nigra). Southern Exposure was supposed to have black mustard, but when I ordered it, it was actually brown. Same thing with Richter's. I notice that now both seed companies have removed it from their catalogs, and now black mustard is extinct commerically in the U. S. Even the mustard seed available for Indian cookery in shops is all brown. All this coincides with the rise of commercial medicinal sources galore of "black mustard extract" and the concurrent denunciation of black mustard as a non-native invasive (in the Midwest, as I recall).

Bill
S. Oregon coast

tvoivozhd---if you are having trouble buying black mustard seed in the U.S., or discovering brown mustard seed being substituted for black, I would suggest trying a British source. I lived in India for some years, and and at that time the only mustard seed I saw in the market was black---brown must be a newcomer. I should add, however, that black mustard seeds are yellow inside---and in India the mustard seeds are not ground, but fried in oil, and pop open to flavor the food..

*Mustard plants are part of the broad genus Brassica, which also includes cabbages and turnips. Within the mustard group three classes of plants produce the spice seeds: Brassica hirta, supplying yellow or white mustard seeds; Brassica juncea, from which we get both brown and oriental mustard seeds; and Brassica nigra, which gives us black or Trieste mustard seeds.

** Black mustard seed. Brassica nigra seeds are not unlike brown mustard seeds in outward appearance. They are about 2 mm or less in size, but tend to be a little more oblong than spherical. Black mustard seeds are actually more brownish in color, and for a long time were known as "English browns" in that country. Since World War II, browns and orientals have gradually replaced black because they can be grown more economically.
*

*
*http://rds.yahoo.com/S=2766679/K=black+mustard+seed/v=2/SID=w/l=WS1/R=73/H=0/IPC=us/SHE=0/SIG=120qhfc9q/*-http%3A//www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Brassica+nigra

(cultivation and uses)

http://www.seasonedpioneers.co.uk/index.htm (see of their mustard seeds are black)





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