Balcony garden notes: Bok Choi

About Bok Choi

I probably had tasted this vegetable mixed into stir fries prior to this, but the first time I remember knowingly trying Bok Choi was one summer visiting my Granddaddy's house.  We came across it at the grocery store, and I mentioned I'd never tried it.  My Dad said he liked it, and so Granddaddy said "let's try some, then!" and threw a couple heads of it in the basket.  Granddaddy was prone to buying a lot of anything he liked!

So I remember trying it raw and being very impressed with the mix of sweet, crisp, and mildly spicy. And once I knew what to recognize, I realized I liked it very much cooked into stir fries and such.

I later learned that the spelling is quite variable, which is not surprising as it comes from Asia where the languages don't tend to use our characters.  I've seen it spelled Bok/Pak/Pac Choy/Choi.

Food sites describe it as “nutrient rich and low calorie”, which seems valuable.

Cultivation

Plant family:  Brassicas (Cool Season Cabbage family)

Season and Growing conditions

Cool season – can tolerate light frost, may actually improve flavor.  Should be able to do spring and fall crops, though excess cold or heat can trigger early bolting.
Plants want moderate to full sun (6+hours per day) though part-shade may help prevent bolting in hot conditions.

Can be successfully grown in a hydroponic setup.

Wants rich soil (leafy plants want nitrogen) with very good drainage to prevent the fleshy stalks from rotting.   

Starting seeds

Plant seeds ¼ to ½ inch deep, thin to 7” or more.  Seedings predicted to emerge at 10-21 days per seed packet.  Per various websites, will germinate quicker than that, and “readily germinate”.

It may also be possible to get new plants by rooting the base of harvested plants (from store or previously harvested one?)

Setting plants

Recommended spacing of 7” or more.  Sources recommend anything from 6-12 inches of soil depth with "rich, well-drained" soil.    If growing for “baby” bok choi, can use 6-inch diameter pot.

Care

Fertilize soil before planting with balanced fertilizer. If adding additional fertilizer, use nitrogen rich product to promote leaf growth.

Water to keep soil most but not soggy.  Try to avoid watering leaves, if possible.

Harvesting

Should be ready for harvest in 45 days.  Baby varieties within 30 days.

“Baby” bok choi is harvested when it is 5-6 inches tall.

Pull whole plants or cut outer leaves for cut-and-come-again harvesting.  Once it bolts it will become bitter.

Pests and problems

Flea beetles
Aphids, mites could be controlled with neem spray

Companions

Other cool season greens like lettuce, spinach, arugula, swiss chard, mustard, mesclun mixtures
Other brassicas like radishes, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, broccoli rabe Beets or carrots Herbs:  Dill, Mint Flowers for pest control:  Nasturtium, Marigolds may help control mites. Tatsoi and Mizuna – two other asian greens, tatsoi is like broccoli raab and mizuna is like mustard.

Use for/cooking

Bok Choi can be eaten raw in salads and slaws, If cooked the key is to cook quickly to retain texture and crispness. Stir fry alone or with other veggies.  Can also roast it - whole heads at once.

https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/whole-story/enjoy-bok-choy 
https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/how-to-cook-bok-choy-raw-recipes-article 

References

https://www.growveg.com/plants/us-and-canada/how-to-grow-bok-choy/ http://geekgardener.in/2011/06/20/growing-bok-choy-in-containers/ https://homeguides.sfgate.com/plant-baby-bok-choy-container-104840.html https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/bok-choy

Sprouts visible 4 days after planting

Kale and Bok Choy and Oat grass for the cats (started day 3, more numerous now)

Chard and basil - just appearing today

House is hot because of a dead air conditioner; it's just about as nice on the balcony as inside.  So, popping outside to look at my tiny seedlings pretty often!

Bok Choi and oat grass have sprouted

After three days, I see the first babies in the pot labelled Bok Choi!  That's pretty impressive for seeds that were marked to use before 2014.  This is three days after planting, and already there's signs of pretty high germination rate.

I'll have to try to transplant them into separate pots, it'll be interesting to see if they can survive the transplanting process.  I'll wait until they're at least starting to develop second leaves.

Since it's quite hot out still, I may move them back a bit on the patio so they'll get less direct sun.

Also, I see the first few shreds of oat grass poking their heads up above the soil.  This is a planting for the cats, of course.  I'll want it to be growing fairly thickly before I put it near them, since there's some chance they might munch it to the ground.  Or, they might ignore it... I've never tried them on it before.

Half-assed start at fall planting, 2018

When we bought the new place, one of the attractions is the huge 4th floor balcony that comes equipped with a water spigot.  I figured that I could live without a yard, but I do like the idea of a place where I can grow some veggies and flowers and sit outdoors amongst the things I'm growing. 

So, I just wasn't organized enough for much of a fall garden, but I did have most of a bag of potting soil and a bunch of empty pots salvaged from the old house.  And I also had a basket of seeds, all of them at least a couple of years old.  So, last weekend I thought it would do no harm to toss some soil into pots and throw in some seeds.  If the seeds are any good, I can transplant them into bigger pots and have a fall garden; if they're no good then I'm no worse off than if I'd just tossed them.

So this morning, I saw the first tiny sprouts, in the pot labelled "Pak Choi".  Which is a seed I bought on a whim because I think that ingredient is tasty, but I don't know much about growing it.  So, time to start researching and documenting!  And time to try to develop a standard format for whatever else grows...

So for my standard format, I figure I'll do two types of posts:  journal posts which show what's happened on a particular day (e.g. a list of what I planted/maintained/harvested and how) and research posts which will focus on a particular plant, technique, pest, etc.  In the research posts I can reference the relevant journal posts to show my ongoing experiments with the thing.  

So what did I plant?  

1.  Oat Grass for the cats - since I'd like this to grow in the pot I planted it in, indoors, I used a mid-sized ornamental pot.  Scattered the seed thickly and covered with about a 1/4" of soil.
2.  Chives - didn't actually plant these, just took a pot that's been growing for several years and is starting to look rather peaked, and divided it into three different pots.  Hopefully that'll encourage new life.  If they grow well, I might put some in with other things for companion planting or I might just give a couple away.
2.  Lettuce - I had a mixed packet of different types of seed, some of which was quite old, and I filled a somewhat bigger pot and scattered the stuff rather thickly across the whole surface and barely sprinkled some soil over it.  I figure that germination is likely to be very low rate.  If it grows more thickly, I might have to thin or transplant.  But, more likely I'll be lucky to get just a few plants.
3.  Broccoli, kale, and Pak Choi, each in a separate container.  Each planted quite thickly, if it comes up I'll need to transplant the seedlings to grow to full size.
4.  Swiss chard - a sprinking of different types, a mix of standard green chard and five-color silverbeet.  Again, seeds very old, sprinkled very thickly and assumed low germination rates and plan to transplant if any germinate.
5.  Herbs - savory, parsley, thyme, rosemary, oregano.  Planted in small pots, if they grow I'll figure out what to do with them.

If they grow, I have a couple ideas for what to do with them.  I have a small supply of larger pots.  I also have a bunch of plastic crates I used for moving.  For the plastic crates, I was thinking of trying to devise some sort of self-watering setup - like, instead of drilling holes in the bottom, I would somehow create a water space at the bottom, maybe using old cans or something to prop up the soil, then use cotton rags (?) to wick up the water to the soil layer.  Will have to research options fairly quickly if I'm to use that this growing season.  More likely, this season will just be big plastic pots from the dollar store or big lots.  

The worst part will be hauling bags of soil to the 4th floor!