How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Chinese Broccoli

The start of spring is always a joyous time! With a few months of cool temperatures on the horizon, you’ll want to consider what you can harvest that grows well without summer’s usual heat. Chinese broccoli is a great addition to your garden and table! A delicious and versatile brassica, growing Chinese broccoli is a fast and easy option. With a grow time of just four to seven weeks, you’ll be harvesting in no time!

A broccoli that Chinese cuisine has utilized for thousands of years, this traditional vegetable is now easy to find and grow in the US from seeds purchased online or starts in nurseries. Packed full of antioxidants and Vitamin C, this little veg packs a punch. 

A little like bok choy, a little like broccoli, it straddles the fence between bitter green and sweet. In a Chinese dish it’s often mistaken for bok choy, but the texture is a little less juicy-crisp and a little more like traditional broccoli. It can be cut up and added to stir-fries, or cooked whole in oyster sauce. One of the earliest vegetables in human cultivation, people have been fermenting it for millennia to preserve it before the time of refrigeration.  

Plant Overview

Plant Vegetable Family Brassicaceae Genus Brassica Species Brassica oleracea var. alboglabra	Native Area France, Great Britain, Spain Exposure Full sun Height 1-2′ Watering Requirements Moderate	Pests & Diseases Cabbage loopers, snails,slugs, sowny mildew, damping off Maintenance Low Soil Type Well-draining, rich sandy Hardiness Zone 2-11

What is Chinese Broccoli?

Chinese broccoli, or Brassica oleracea var. alboglabra goes by many names. It has been called Chinese kale, gai lan and kai lan. For all its names, this ancient Chinese vegetable with a beautiful white or yellow flower is guaranteed to please your taste buds. It’s packed full of nutrients and fiber, and like other members of the cabbage family, is an early-season harvest with outstanding flavor. 

Native Area

Brassica oleracea has origins in Europe, specifically Britain, France, and Spain. The variety alboglabra is more commonly found in Asia and is native to southern China but is widely cultivated across Southeast Asia. It thrives in warm, subtropical, and tropical climates, making it well-suited for regions with moderate to high humidity.

It has been introduced to other parts of the world, including Africa and the Americas, where it is grown as a vegetable.

Characteristics

Chinese broccoli is a short, leafy vegetable with thick stems and green leaves growing around a thick main stalk. The flat broad leaves can grow up to three inches across and three to five inches long. 

It produces a flower early in its life, but this doesn’t take away from the flavor at all! When the flowers appear, it’s actually a sign that it’s time to start harvesting. 

They have a relatively short life. They germinate quickly, and within about four to seven weeks, they grow to about a foot in height with fully developed leaves and flowers. Almost the entire above-ground portion of the vegetable is eaten, from stems to leaves and flowers! 

Planting

A cool-season vegetable, Chinese broccoli can be grown year-round depending on your average daily temperatures; it prefers temperatures between 50-75°F (10-24°C). It’s a wonderful fall and winter harvest for growers in zones 9 and 10, and a great early spring crop for anyone gardening with a fear of a late frost. In a far northern climate or in cool and shaded gardens, this crop can even do well in the summer. 

Check your upcoming climate conditions; if you have five to seven weeks of cool temperatures forecast, go ahead and sow Chinese broccoli seeds. You can sow either in trays and transplant out once they reach about three inches in height, or you can directly sow into your amended garden soil. Sow seeds a quarter of an inch deep and space them four to six inches apart in rows 18-24 inches apart. Once they emerge, thin any seedlings that are closer than four inches apart, or growing multiple seedlings in a single spot. 

After you sow, be sure to keep the soil or trays evenly moist until germination, and continue misting until they reach three inches in height. 

Chinese broccoli grows well in containers and raised beds! Since gardeners are better able to control the types of soil present in these growing areas, they have a better chance of thriving. If you’re growing in containers, try planting one per six-inch wide pot, or three per one-foot wide pot. The deeper the pot, the healthier the root system will be. 

How to Grow

Chinese broccoli, sometimes known as Chinese kale, doesn’t need a whole lot of maintenance to get a nice full harvest. You can pop some seeds in the ground and wait until they begin to flower to harvest. 

Light

During the cool season, you’ll want Chinese broccoli in the sun for 6-8 hours a day, making sure that it doesn’t get so hot it begins to bolt. Before temperatures reach a steady 50°F (10°C) degrees a day, you can use a row cover to help insulate them from the cold and encourage faster growth.

Water

While spring and summer may bring rainstorms, it’s best to water your garden every week especially if there isn’t rain in the forecast. In order to prevent disease, water mid to late morning on a drip line. Your Chinese broccoli needs one inch of water a week, more if it’s supposed to get hot out. Be sure to protect them as well, by mulching around the base of the stalk. This mulch helps to retain water and can prevent bolting from hot weather. 

Soil

This early producing spring crop loves rich soil, good drainage, and a pH of 6.0-6.8. A loamy-sand to silty soil is best for this fast-producing Asian vegetable. Work rich compost or manure into the top six inches of soil before starting seeds or transplanting. Well-drained organic humus is what works best for these tender greens. It can survive in poor-quality soil if compost is worked into it. A heavy feeder, organic compost, or thick mulch can make up for poor soil. 

Temperature

A cool-season type, this vegetable does best in cooler temperatures – think 50-75°F (10-24°C). This means that depending on your zone, you can grow this vegetable in fall, winter, spring, and summer! It all depends on the average daily temperatures of the zone you’re in. Don’t worry, though; they can tolerate a frost or two. 

Fertilizing

A fast grower, Chinese broccoli needs a good deal of nutrients to grow. Before sowing seeds or transplanting seedlings into your garden, make sure that your soil has had rich compost worked into the top six inches. Additionally, at the time of planting, apply an even balanced fertilizer around your vegetable patch. 

After the seeds germinate and are four weeks old, apply a fertilizer high in nitrogen around the base of the stalks. Nitrogen aids in leaf development, which is key! 

Propagation

Chinese broccoli is such a quick-growing type that is only propagated by seed. This is pretty easy to do as the seeds have a very high germination rate. You can also grow your own seeds by letting them complete their life cycle. After it flowers, the flower stalks produce seeds and prepare for the next year. 

Harvesting

Chinese broccoli is a great cut-and-come-again crop. It can be used in stir-fries over the course of a few days, or fermented to make traditional Chinese vegetable side dishes! 

It is best harvested when the first few flowers begin to poke out from the center of the stalk. Cut the leaves and the stems about eight inches from the top, leaving a few leaves still attached to the stalk. This helps to encourage growth! You may just have another harvest in one to three weeks!  

Storage

Immediately after harvesting your Chinese broccoli, use or refrigerate your leaves. These thin vegetables tend to wilt somewhat quickly as the moisture leaves their leaves. In order to extend their shelf life, put your harvest in the fridge in high humidity in an unsealed plastic or paper bag. 

Alternatively, for long-term storage, Chinese broccoli can be pickled or fermented to make a traditional vegetable side dish in Chinese cuisine known as fermented mustard greens. 

Common Problems

Growing Chinese broccoli is fairly easy. With a short growing season, it can often be relatively pest and disease-free. 

Growing Problems

Chinese broccoli needs a cool season in order to thrive. It’s easy to grow while it’s cool out, but be sure that harvest time (five to seven weeks down the road) is also in the cool season. If not, you’ll find them bolting. This is a normal part of the Chinese broccoli life cycle, however, you want to avoid speeding up the life cycle as this means you can’t enjoy your harvest! To avoid this, sow your seeds after checking to make sure there are five to seven weeks of cool weather ahead. 

Pests

Slugs and snails love the nutritious leaves and will often eat the tender parts while avoiding stalks. They’re more likely to start near the base of a stem and eat outwards. To kill, try putting down bait or setting out beer traps to catch these pesky guys!

Alternatively, cabbage loopers love to snack on the delicious leaves. These are small, lime-colored caterpillars that blend in with the color of the leaves and can kill young veg or eat older ones before they become moths. Try spraying Bacillus thuringiensis if you have a large population. For smaller infestations, you can easily pick the caterpillar off the leaf. 

Diseases

Damping off is a serious disease that can attack your Chinese broccoli while it’s still just a few inches tall. This soil-borne fungal disease will cause your stem to rot and shrink and will attack the root system as well. Damping off is actually a series of fungi and can kill whole trays of seedlings. Once they become infected, there is no known cure. However, it can be prevented with good soil drainage and air circulation. 

Downy mildew can also attack your Chinese broccoli. This fungus attacks through wounds in the leaves and thrives in cool, moist conditions. It appears as white or brownish spots on the upper portions of the leaf before turning a dark brown and killing the leaf. While it’s tricky to eliminate, remove any damaged foliage.

Frequently Asked Questions