Grow your own oriental leaf salad

In the summer, I like to grow Oriental vegetables for their young leaves.

Here, I have simply sown a mix of Mizuna and two varieties of Pak Choi into a seed tray. I like to sow my own mix of seeds rather than buy pre-mixed packets of salad seeds because I like to know what crops I am going to harvest. 

Growing Rubi Pak Choi with purple leaves!

Over the last few months, we have had two varieties of Pak Choi (Pak Choy, Bok Choy) growing in our vegetable patch.  The first is the magnificent looking  Rubi (F1) Pak Choi which has lovely deep purple leaves and pale green stems, and the other is a white stemmed, green leaved Dwarf Bok Choy .

Growing
This year, I decided to grow Rubi Pak Choi during the cooler months.  The seeds were sowed in the late Summer in the UK (September), and then planted out shortly after.

Have you ever seen a purple Pak Choi ...?

Rubi Pak Choi

So, having lived in Asia for many years, I thought that I had seen all the Pak Choi (Bok Choy, Pak Choy) that the world had to offer, until I arrived in the UK, and stumbled across a seed packet with a vegetable resembling a Pak Choi on it, only it had purple coloured leaves.  This really baffled me, since I had never come across a purple Pak Choi before.  It felt a bit like the time I tried to explain to my nephew James who lives in Hong Kong (then twelve), that I had seen someone growing a purple carrot in the UK, to which he snorted in disbelief and asked me if I was sure it wasn't just a rotten one.

Anyhow, to all the people around the world who have grown up eating Pak Choi, whether green or white stemmed, there is now also a purple leaf variety that is a hybrid called Rubi (F1) Pak Choi.  The catch is that you will have to grow it yourself, to be able to taste it, as it is not going to be available at your local supermarket any time soon.

You might also be interested in the full post on Growing Rubi Pak Choi.

Delicious Things to Harvest in June!

The month of June was a month of 'green' for us and for the very first time, we were able to continuously harvest and eat our own homegrown vegetables.  Mostly these were green vegetables, which has helped to fulfill my cravings for Chinese cuisine and boost our CVC Index*. As the Summer season begins, temperatures in England have soared (with some days reaching a maximum of 28 °C), and whilst most of our plants have thrived in this heat, the soil has never been drier meaning constant watering has become crucial. In these extra long sunny days when the sun doesn't set until half past nine in the evenings, it has also meant a lot more 'garden' time for us!

Cut and Grow again Chinese baby leaf salad

How I love a salad in the warmer months, and especially baby leaf salad!  This year being the year of homegrowing, I really wanted to have 'cut-and-grow-again' baby salad leaves around the house as they are so handy to have and you can just snip your way to a lovely homegrown salad as and when you desire! 

Back in April, we decided to sow "Leaf Salad - Stir Fry mix" seeds from Suttons.   The mix included "Pak Choi, Kailan, Choy Sim Hon Tsai Tai, Tatsoi, Chinese Kale and Yukina Savoy".

Grow Pak Choi: from garden to wok!

Since arriving in England a few months ago, there has been a noticeable downturn in the rate of my Chinese-Vegetable-Cooking Index.  Key to this is the absence of Chinese Greens at our local supermarket.

Now, I have decided to grow some 'Pak Choi', also known as 'Bok Choy' or '白菜' depending if you're English, Australian or....well...Chinese. Its one of those great vegetables that you can just bung into your noodles or stir-fry to deliver an almost guaranteed green-sweetness and tasty crunch.

Mid-April, we were at our local garden centre and I was elated to find Pak Choi seedlings.  We got ten for £1 (after a 50% discount); turns out the poor little seedlings had been nibbled at by hungry mice....