Chinese Broccoli Mix
Brassica oleracea Alboglabra
I was never a fan of Chinese Broccoli. I’d seen it for sale, looked skimpy and small, why bother when I can grow a whole head! Boy was I wrong. After planting Yod Fah and Blue Star Gai Lan in a trial last spring, I fell in love. Not only was I picking the thick, juicy stems daily for about 5 months, but they were consistently tender, sweet, nutritious, and the taste actually rivals broccoli florets.
Gai Lan is an essential and beloved vegetable in Chinese and Thai culinary traditions. It’s easy to grow and can be paired with many other vegetables, or used alone. Gai Lan and Yod Fah are very similar in appearance and taste, but have different colors of green leaves and a little different growing habit.
Chinese Broccoli is a leafy green vegetable with long stems and small florets on top. It’s in the Brassica oleracea family that includes broccoli, kale, cabbage, and cauliflower, but it’s “technically” a cabbage with a mild broccoli taste. Pick the stems and leaves when they have a tiny floret on top before the white flowers open or go ahead and pick them with flowers, all good. Younger flowers will have a more tender stalk. Don’t harvest the whole plant, just let them continue to make more and more stalks over a season. At the end of the season when the plant looks finished you could let the last round go to seed and collect your own for next planting!
Broccoli is nutrient dense and low in calories and a great source of vitamins C, A, and K. If you have never grown this vegetable, give it a try. This is a mix, so you can try both varieties in your home garden and see if there are any differences in how they grow. Yod Fah has larger and more greener leaves, and Gai Lan is more compact with a blue-green leaf.
Cooking Tips: I tried cooking them many different ways, but my favorite was braising. First quickly saute in a skillet with a little olive or sesame oil with some garlic. Add in the cut stems, leaves, and tops. Following the saute, add a small amount of water put the lid on and let them steam and become tender, turning down the heat to low. Yummy! Great in stir fries, or add to any soup or just eat as a side dish.
Planting Instructions
Chinese broccoli will grow year around. Harvest as a cut-and-come-again vegetable. Plant in full sun if possible or at least 6 hours of sunlight.
Planting & transplanting: Plant 1 or 2 seeds ¼” deep in a single cell or 5-7 in a community pot. Once they have 5 true leaves, carefully transplant into your garden beds with compost, or transplant the best looking ones from the community pot into 3” pots and let them get a bit more mature before transplanting in the garden. Set plants out 8-10” apart in rows 18” apart. Plants get large if given enough space! If you have well established garden soil (and can protect your seeds for birds, slugs, and mice!) you could try planting the seed directly 6 inches apart and thin, keeping the best plants.
Days to Maturity – 50-60 days before you can harvest.
Harvest – Harvest stalks before they flower, but no worries, the flowers are tasty also.
In the spring and summer, I had no insect or disease problems, even though it was raining almost every day. Amazing. If spring & summer weather is dry be sure to water, deeply at least once a week.
Grown on Kawanui Farm – Kona
50 seeds per packet