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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

Just back from the garden and the first real view of it since November.  
Most winters there are ample days to play around spading and raking beds, 
removing haulms and weeds, etc.  But this year since mid October the ground 
has 
either been subject to gale winds, under half a foot of snow, or both, and 
worse.  At noon it's already 60 degrees and bright sunny.

Last fall before the 'Three Years Winter' set in, I had all and sundry 
brassicas growing as winter greens, kale of various kinds, collards, broccoli 
sprouts, and such.  Most winters there's at least a taste of green all 
through 
the winter from those.  Not this winter.  The snow even dashed down the 
stockiest and hardiest collards and black palm kale.

Some years back I began to grow all manner of oriental greens in the 
gardens.  Bac Choi, Joi Choi, and I'm not sure I recall them all.  One, 
though, we 
grow quite a bit of,  tsa-tsoi (also rendered ta-tsoi, tat-soi, and sever 
others).  By the bye, soi, tsoi, choi, and other spellings are attempts at 
transliterating the Chinese word for cabbage or brassica.

Ta-tsoi grows as a tight rosette of spoon shaped leaves with the bowl of 
the spoon the deepest green and the 'handle' bright white.  Mostly we've 
grown 
it in the spring where it will get the size and shape of a teacup and then 
quickly bolt to seed.  It grows in the summer with the rosettes getting 
smaller and smaller before they bolt as the weather gets warmer.

It is simply one of the most delicious greens there is, equally good raw 
and cooked.  The leaves and stems are thick like a succulent and so you'd 
expect that it would not stand up to freezing much, although it is reputed to 
be 
a very cold weather crop.

Well, last fall I managed to get a fairly large bed of seedlings out before 
the bad weather beplagued us.  All through the winter this or that green 
would succumb.  First the mizuna and rocket, then spinach and lettuce, then 
mustard and kale, and finally the black kale and collards.  But every time 
the 
snow would recede a bit, there would be this dark green poking out of the 
ta-tsoi bed.

The snow and ice have finally retreated revealing a garden that has heaved 
and pitched with the frost for months and without descrimination taken down 
every living thing.  

Except the ta-tsoi.

The rosettes are the size of dinner plates with all the leaves hugging 
close to the ground, deep green and no sign of any type of damage whatever.

Like most of these oriental greens, you'd have to work hard and not being 
able to save seed.  Ta-tsoi bolts easily in warm weather and presents you 
with neat pods of seeds that closely resemble radish seed pods, about that 
size.
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