Spring is filled with wild mustard flowers around these parts. As is our custom, we learn about 1-2 new edible plants per year. Usually this happens when I notice one, reach out to friends to ask if it is edible, then dive in to do research. It is as if the edible plants speak to me while I am tiptoeing through the tulips...

At first, we thought the leaves looked like kale.They also tasted kale-like. After some poking around, and a quick question to Purple Maize Farms, we learned that this delectable plant has several uses:

1) The flowers are yummy on a salad and make it look pretty

2) The leaves can be stewed like mustard greens. Oh wait - it's wild mustard so they ARE mustard greens.

3) Guess what you get if you dry and  grind the seeds? You got it, mustard powder, the base of one of my favorite condiments.

Nutritionally speaking, this plant is high in vitamin K and folic acid, two things that seem to run low in our diet at this time of year after two months of mostly canned veggies.

Get the flowers while you can, but avoid the roadside ditch ones. Those have a little too much oil dust on them.