Heat-tolerant Asian Leaf vegetables (reviewing)

I always make sure that we have some supply of Asian leaf vegetables growing every month on our veggie patch. They are life-savers if other plants are not doing well due to the weather or desease at least we have something to harvest. Advantages of growing asian leaf vegetables are can be harvest at any stages, quick to grow, use a small space, grow well in partial shade, can be grown in shallow container even 10cm of soil depth and the very reliable cut and come again harvest. However, one main point to remember when growing Asian leaf vegetables is that it likes mild weather and our mid-summer will be a bit tricky to grow them as extreme weather can cause them to bolt easily. For example, choy sum that were grown in December all flowered and producing seed pods. So, I reckon choy sum sowing break will be from December until February during warm weather well that is the whole summer. So this is a review of Asian Leaf vegetable trial result growing in warm weather here in Adelaide (or Allenby Gardens) for this summer. From this observation, I can update a new sowing schedule at the bottom of my blog and don't waste seeds next season.

Although I often harvest leaf amaranth (bayam) to prevent them from flowering too quickly, it still bolted this month. Is this due to hot extreme weather or cold nights that we have sometime when the temperature really fluctuated during day and night, I am not sure which is the cause. Kangkung has been doing very well this summer. The rain that we had recently has made kangkung (water spinach) happy and growing very fast. Some of the kangkung has been growing for 3 or 4 months and has been cut many times. I wonder how long will spinach be able to grow here in Adelaide as this is our first season growing KangKung in Adelaide. I was a bit worried growing them at first as we usually have very dry summer here and KangKung is very fond of moisture. I am glad it thrive in Allenby Gardens without any special care. Kangkung grow well from seeds here but not from cuttings. Moreover, I finish sowed all of our kangkung seeds this month and the germination rate was good.

We sowed some Chinese Broccoli (Kailan) seeds this month but germination was not good. I think it is still not the right time to start sowing this vegetable perhaps next month. I remember that last year in autumn we had so many Chinese Broccoli harvest. So this vegetable does not like hot weather very much, either it bolt or have very slow growth. Inter-planting kailan with jicama (sengkuang) more than 3 months ago but very slow growth until now I have not finish harvesting as waiting for it to grow bigger.

Mei Qing Choi F1 has been very reliable providing us with lot of leaf vegetable harvest this summer. I made a post about growing Mei Qing Choi F1 last month.

Sowed many seeds of Mei Qing Choi F1 in January and this month. The germination rate was almost 100%. Only direct sowing method was used this summer.

I found one of the Mei Qing Choi F1 plant bolted and the flower look really strange not the common features of brassica flowers. The flower is not symmetrical like pak choi flower, instead it have many petal with strange order. I guess this is expected coming from a hybrid or mutant flower.

 Which leaf vegetable grows well during warm weather in your garden?

Mei Qing Choi F1 (hybrid)

I bought a packet of Mei Qing Choi F1 seeds in autumn this year from Phoenix seeds company. Mei Qing Choi F1 is a hybrid variety producing very compact pak choi about half the size of the standard cultivators. Petioles are a soft green and form a thick base to the plant even in the young stages. Shows good bolt resistance and is tolerant of heat and cold, making it relatively simple to cultivate. I tested this seeds in spring and the germination was very good. Seedlings ready to be transplanted.

Germination in summer is also very good so far. But this time I direct sowed them where I want them to grow so we avoid heat-shock from transplanting. Since this leafy vegetables can be harvest anytime it is very convenient. This seedlings grow so fast benefit from direct sowing and the warmer temperature that we begun to have.

Different stages of Mei Qing Choi F1 growth.

I found that this hybrid is pest and disease resistance. I have been busy and not been able to check cabbage white butterfly eggs and caterpillars underside the leaves. However, this variety still look not that bad. The other non-hybrid leaf vegetables usually are almost bare without any leaves only the stem were left for us from the pest or can it be that odour from onions that were previouly grown here still strongly linger. Some of them has gone through the cut and come again stage and the leaves grow back really fast.

This hybrid is very heat-tolerant as well from my trial conclusion growing them. It will be interesting to test them in cooler weather to see whether it will quick to bolt or not. In comparison with red choi which is another hybrid that I tested this year, Mei Qing Choi F1 is not showing any bolting sign yet even though it is now summer and we had extreme hot weather this week. The red choi has already started to bolt. I did sowed some Mei Qing Choi F1 seeds this week and it has popped up in less than a week.  Mei Qing Choi F1 ready to be harvested.

A close up look of Mei Qing Choi F1 that has been watered recently in the late afternoon feeling fresh after withstanding the above 40 degree Celcius temperature for a few days now during the day.

Our main harvest for this week.