Peaks Jun–Oct, sown year-round

The workhorse. Roughly 215 mg calcium, 2.3 mg iron and 43 mg vitamin C per 100 g, with more protein than most leaves. Red-stemmed kempu harive carries betalain pigments; green hasiru dantu is milder. Ready to cut 25–30 days from seed, which is why it feeds Karnataka.

Best Nov–Feb; bolts in summer heat

A North Indian and Persian arrival that naturalised into the Kannada kitchen. 2.7 mg iron, 194 µg folate and an enormous 483 µg vitamin K per 100 g. High in oxalates, so the iron and calcium are poorly absorbed raw — cook it, and finish with lemon or pair with dal.

Oct–Feb is when it's sweet, not bitter

Around 4.4 g protein and close to 395 mg calcium per 100 g — one of the highest-calcium leaves in everyday use. The bitterness is galactomannan-rich soluble fibre and 4-hydroxyisoleucine, both studied for blood-sugar response. Grown in the cold, it loses most of that bitterness.

All year; fragrance peaks Nov–Feb

Treated as garnish, eaten as medicine. 310 µg vitamin K and 27 mg vitamin C per 100 g, plus linalool and the polyphenols that make it smell like that. The aroma compounds are volatile — which is exactly why week-old coriander tastes like green paper.

Oct–Feb

Underrated and mineral-dense: about 208 mg calcium, 85 mg vitamin C and useful iron per 100 g. Carvone and limonene are the carminative compounds behind its long use for colic and bloating. Cooked with moong dal and a spoon of ghee, it's one of the best things in a Karnataka winter.

All year from runners; lushest post-monsoon

Surprisingly iron-rich for a herb — roughly 5 mg iron and 240 mg calcium per 100 g, though you rarely eat 100 g of it. Menthol and rosmarinic acid do the antispasmodic and antihistamine work that makes pudina chutney more than a flavour.

All year; tender flush after rain

The most-cooked and least-eaten leaf in South India. About 830 mg calcium per 100 g — more than most dairy by weight — plus carbazole alkaloids like mahanimbine studied for lipid and glucose effects. None of that reaches you if you push it to the side of the plate. Grind it into chutney pudi instead.

All year; heavy flush Jun–Sep after pruning

The outlier. Roughly 9.4 g protein, 185 mg calcium, 4 mg iron and 51 mg vitamin C per 100 g of fresh leaf — protein numbers no other common leaf reaches. Also carries isothiocyanates. A tree that fruits, flowers and feeds, growing on the worst soil you own.

Jun–Oct; loves heat and rain together

A climbing vine, not a spinach at all. About 102 mg vitamin C per 100 g — four times spinach — plus folate, vitamin A and a soluble mucilage that thickens basale soppu saaru and soothes the gut lining. The one green that gets better as Bengaluru gets muggier.

Sown with the rains, cut Aug–Nov

The sour one. Around 215 mg calcium per 100 g with good vitamin C and iron; the sharpness is malic, oxalic and ascorbic acid together, which is also why it needs no tamarind. North Karnataka eats it as pundi palya with jowar roti; Andhra turned it into pachadi.

Nov–Feb only, in the cold

Roughly 70 mg vitamin C and 258 µg vitamin K per 100 g, plus the glucosinolates — sinigrin and its breakdown products — that give brassicas their peppery bite and their reputation in cancer-prevention research. In Karnataka more often used as a wild kadu sasive than a field crop.

Nov–Feb

Bright, lemony, about 48 mg vitamin C per 100 g. Also genuinely high in oxalic acid — this is the one green to eat in small quantities, cooked, and to avoid if you form kidney stones. Traditionally cooked with dal precisely because calcium in the dal binds some of the oxalate.

Jun–Sep, the monsoon leaf

Big vitamin A and folate numbers, and the base of coastal Karnataka's pathrode. Must be cooked with tamarind or lime — raw calcium oxalate crystals cause the throat itch, and acid plus heat dismantles them. Never eat it raw, and pick the non-itchy cultivar if you can.

Mar–Sep; a succulent that shrugs off drought

The highest omega-3 content of any leafy vegetable measured — roughly 300–400 mg ALA per 100 g — plus 68 mg magnesium, potassium and betalains. Lemony and crunchy raw, which almost no Indian green is. Grows as a weed and is treated as one, which is a small tragedy.

Jun–Oct on lake beds and wet field margins

Foraged, not farmed — women on Bengaluru's lake edges still cut it with clam shells. Dense in beta-carotene and iron, traditionally given for eye health, digestion and post-partum recovery. Its survival is tied directly to whether the city's lake beds survive.

Perennial shrub, picked all year

Called the multivitamin plant for good reason — unusually high protein for a leaf, with strong vitamin B, vitamin C and carotenoid levels. A handful goes into palya, sambar or tambuli. Grows from a stem cutting in a pot, which makes it the single best plant to keep on a Bengaluru balcony.

Perennial, thickest leaves in summer

Every Kannada household had one in a pot by the door. Thick, furred, carvacrol-heavy leaves given for cough, cold and colic — usually crushed with honey, or fried into tambuli. Medicinal rather than nutritional: a few leaves, not a bowl.

Jun–Oct in damp, shaded ground

One round leaf per stalk — hence onde-elaga, "single leaf". The triterpenes asiaticoside and madecassoside are the reason it appears in both Ayurvedic memory tonics and modern wound-healing creams. Eaten as chutney and tambuli, rarely as a bulk green.

Tender flush Mar–Apr, around Ugadi

Eaten as ritual before it is eaten as food — bevu-bella, neem and jaggery, on Ugadi day. Nimbin and azadirachtin are antimicrobial and antiparasitic; the bitterness is the active ingredient. Use in very small amounts, and skip it entirely in pregnancy or while trying to conceive.

Oct–Feb, with the flowers

A fast-growing nitrogen-fixing tree whose leaves and white flowers both go into the pot. High in calcium, iron and vitamin A; slightly bitter, so it's usually cooked with coconut and dal. Farmers plant it on field bunds — food and green manure from the same tree.

Jun–Oct, self-seeding in field corners

Given for mouth ulcers and liver complaints across rural Karnataka, cooked with dal into massoppu. Only the ripe black berries and mature leaves are safe — unripe green berries contain solanine. Know your plant, or buy it from someone who does.

Perennial clump, cut all year

Citral-rich and antimicrobial, brewed as kashaya long before it appeared in Thai curries. Doesn't contribute meaningful bulk nutrition — it's an aromatic — but a clump in the garden is one of the easiest useful plants in Karnataka, and it keeps giving for years.

Nov–Feb outdoors; year-round under shade net

Not traditional, but genuinely Karnataka-grown now — the plateau's cool nights and 900 m elevation suit them better than almost anywhere else in India. Arugula carries 160 mg calcium and dietary nitrates per 100 g; bok choy about 45 mg vitamin C. Bengaluru's climate earned these.