Pak Choi... or Bok Choy?
Depending on where you live, this Chinese cabbage can vary in name, including horse’s ear, Chinese celery, and white mustard. No matter what you call it, it’s full of flavor when picked fresh from the garden.
Bok choy is American English, while pak choi is British English. The variety we plant is a Purple Pak Choi from Park Seeds because it grows quickly and easily, setting on large, tender leaves in rich purple hues. Thirty days after the leaves emerge, you can start harvesting.
Tip: When planting pak choi, use seed tape. It will save you time and frustration!
When we harvest, we always leave the center section so additional leaves will grow. A 6 ft. row provides us with plenty of pak choi before the July heat makes it bolt. (That’s garden talk for producing a flowering stem, which happens when plants are under stress and they push to produce seeds before they die.)
This year we’re planting our pak choi a little late since April didn’t bring much warm weather. Now that we’re in May and the weather is finally warming, it’s time to plant. Besides planting now, in the Spring, we’re also going to plant in the late summer/early fall. As long as we cover our beds to protect from the Kansas cold, we’ll have pak choi clear through October.
2019 garden… pak choi on the far end.
2020 garden… we planted our pak choi. Nothing to see yet! :)
“All gardening is landscape painting.” — William Kent, landscape architect
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