I have been putting off writing about baby pak choi for a week. Maybe because they fall in my semi-failure category of greens. The variety is Shanghai, a green stemmed variety from Kitazawa (High Mowing also supplies it). I don't totally remember why I picked it except that it is a 'high yielding, cool season annual.' It forms an hourglass shape and is pretty much grown for its flesh petioles (the bit that connects the leaf to the stem).
Growing a sexy, hourglass figure when you're crammed into a tray is kind of hard. This is why I called it a semi-failure. I got to eat some hand selected, delicious baby pak choi, but no one else did. They variety just did not work as a baby green for the growing system we use. I bet if they were grown in-ground with a bit more space instead of in trays they would be a brilliant (and high grossing?) crop.
*What is the proper way to spell pak choi? Recently, I've been using a 'K' as Kitazawa does, but High Mowing using a 'C'.
I grew up with it called bok choy, the Cantonese spelling. The other versions are mostly variations of spelling rather than referring to different cultivars. The baby bak choy that you grew look quite successful, were they considered a failure only on the basis of comparative yield?
ReplyDeleteOoo - choy with a 'y' too. I like that. Words that end in 'i' seem incomplete to me. I seeded the bak choy with the same density as everything else I planted, so each plant didn't have much space. Plus, I had to leave a lot of the bottom leaves because they weren't very nice. I'm sure I could grow really nice baby bak choy's if they were planted less densely, but I don't know if it would be worth it economically.
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