Growing and harvesting Pak choi.

It’s been a while since I last posted anything about a homegrown vegetable. The growing season is coming to an end. Not unless one does have a heated greenhouse and grow lights it is not easy to extend the growing season. I have sowed Pak Choi seeds back around in mid to end of August and how much they have grown!!

Pak Choi also is known as Bok Choi, Pak Choy are all the same it’s just spelled in different forms. In Chinese simplified, it is written as 白菜 . Pronounce as baicai. After translation, it means white vegetable. Probably because some varieties the stem are white in colour.

Disclosure: There are some affiliate links below, but these are all products I highly recommend. I won’t put anything on this page that I haven’t verified and/or personally used. For further information here is the link to disclosure policy  

Growing

I have grown them in pots as I have do not have any more room on the raised beds. The seeds can be obtained online. I got mine from eBay and also from Thompson and Morgan (an online retailer). In spring and summer, one can find young plants in garden centres.

They are easy they grow, they don’t tolerate too much direct sun as they will bolt (goes into producing flowers instead of growing more leaves) easily. They do well in between season of summer and autumn where the weather is getting cooler. Some gardeners say apparently they are frost tolerate till -5 degree ?!! Perhaps only when they well established not young seedlings. After sowing the seeds all it needs to grow is some very drain compost or soil.

They do bolt (got into flowering rather than produce more leaves) easily in hot weather. So rather than growing them in the summer try to grow them in autumn instead. They don’t require much sunlight so grow them partial shade.

Harvesting

Harvest the leaves as they grow as it will provide a constant supply of leaves till they stop producing anymore leaves.  They are different varieties of pak choi one can find in the market green or purple to grow.

Here are 3 different types of variety from Thompson & Morgan Tricolour mix. Thompson & Morgan is a UK base largest mail order seeds and plants supplier. I use to think that their seed is on the pricey side. They also have a US based company called Gurneys.com I have never use Gurneys.com as most seed suppliers don’t normally send seed outside the US. Here more information about Thompson & Morgan delivery

The pak choi in the photos here are of the green F1 variety and Pak choi white F1 variety.  Both are distinctive in their stem Some Pak choi white F1 variety can be much more juicier than the Pak choi green variety.

They also can be grown indoors by a sunny spot in containers.

It’s a mild tasting vegetable, the young pak choi leaves are great in salads. The older ones are better if it’s like on stir fry or noodles or soups. Will post recipes on them soon. Here is this link on recipes using pak choi.