Pak Choi White Stem Cabbage!

[daylilydude]

I ordered 2000 seeds of these and wanted to ask y'all is there any special treatment or needs to growing these?

[txdirtdog]

All the pak and bok choi I've grown so far doesn't need any particular special treatment. They grow fairly fast.

They do like cooler temps. In a warm spell they tend to bolt quickly. Since we had a winter that floated between the 30's and 70's regularly last time, I had a hard time growing greens. Everything tried to bolt repeatedly.

[Durgan]

Oct 18, 2011 16:09:18 GMT -5 daylilydude said:

I ordered 2000 seeds of these and wanted to ask y'all is there any special treatment or needs to growing these?quote]

As txdirtdog stated they grow well. But as stated they like it cool.

It is my favourite green, stir fried a bit with soy sauce in a bit of butter. Stems first then throw in the tops. They have a habit of maturing all at the same time, and action must be taken almost immediately.

The flea beetle can raise havoc with the leaves, which spoils the beauty of the produce. Some type of spraying or cover must be considered.

[pepperhead212]

Bok Choy varies greatly by variety, in my experience - size, flavor, and definitely when they bolt. Some bolt when it starts getting warmer out, some simply at a certain age, if it is not getting warm, as in the fall, and some can be triggered by temperatures dropping quickly, as in the spring (though I have seen this problem more in napa, I did have one variety of bok choy in which this happened). The best variety I have found so far is one I found in Johnnie's Win-Win, maybe so named because it is good in both cold AND hot weather. Normally, this stuff bolts in mid-June around here, but this lasted until the end of July for me this season, and it still hadn't bolted - I just pulled it out since I had to plant something else in that spot! Also, it doesn't get overgrown from just sitting there, and has a fairly good range of time to harvest it in.

One good thing about bok choy, that most people don't take advantage of, is that, like many other Asian greens, you can harvest the perimeter greens, and it will keep growing, like leaf lettuce or parsley. Good for home use, but not commercial sellers. I have gotten some fairly good sized ones I could harvest from by 30 days - not just mini greens. And this is some transplanted on 9-19:


You will see some holes in the lower leaves because slugs got to them early, but they recovered, as the rest of my greens did. I covered mine with fabric for the first 3 weeks, with a small amount of sluggo (local places stopped stocking it, so I had to order it), and when uncovered, the holes were there in some - mainly bok choy and tatsoi. On 10-9 I covered with plastic over the hoops, and a LOT of sluggo, and when uncovered, they had grown considerably.

Though it lasted well into the new year, bok choy eventually died off under cover last winter, while tatsoi, mizuna, komatsuna, and senposai lasted the entire winter. Then, it reappeared in March, and bolted immediately, along with all the other brassicas still around.