The Whoas of Bok Choy in East TN

I occasionally receive growing questions from some of our gardener-members, and there is one question that seems to repeat itself each spring, “Why did my bok choy bolt?”  Oh, bok choy...

Bok choy is a quick-growing member of the brassica family that can handle some frosts, grows best in moderate temperatures, and cannot be grown in the summer both because of the heat and because it is day-length sensitive.  So why is it so difficult to grow here in the spring?  Well, the answer is easy: temperature fluctuations.  Bok choy cannot handle our sometimes 60 degree swings in temperature during a seven-day period and is particularly prone to bolting when we have a couple of cold nights (like we did 2 weeks ago) followed by really warm weather. 

Bok choy bolting or going to seed.  At this point, it is bitter and not of good eating quality.  This can literally happen over night in our climate, commonly after a cold snap.

The”what to do about it” has plagued me for ten years and led me to give up growing bok choy twice.  I am conducting what I believe in my heart-of-hearts to be my last bok choy trial (because I don’t really have any other ideas).  This season I am growing every organic variety on the market (hybrid and heirloom) in three different successional plantings in an attempt to corner someone.  It is plain and simple: I want a bok choy that doesn’t bolt.  

That seems like such an easy request in a vegetable that takes about 65 days from start to finish.  However, all of the varieties in our first succession bolted.  Three of the four varieties in our second succession bolted after the freeze.  However, we are currently harvesting “Prize” bok choy - an heirloom, loose head bok choy that was the only bok choy that we were able to harvest last season as well.  I don’t love it.  Like many heirlooms, it is variable in size and even appearance, it maintains some of the heirloom qualities that more refined hybrids have eliminated like spiny leaves and looseness, and it bolts, too, if you let it get very big.  That said, if it is going to make it two seasons without too much bolting, I may at least have a candidate with which I can work.  In our third succession, one variety has already bolted (at about 4” high...definitely off the list), but the other two varieties are doing well (one is “Prize”).  

Prize Choy, the only bok choy variety that we have had any success with here

So enjoy your “Prize” bok choy this week, as it is just that: a special spring treasure that is hard to come by and years in the making.  I hope to keep working with this bok choy.  I want to feel so confident in it that I am willing to plant 1200 of them every spring, cover them, weed them, water them, and then just wait to harvest them.  Instead of worrying over them for 65 days, which is what I do right now.

Saving Seed: M-GEN Field Observation Studies

Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) is a non-profit organization founded in 1975 that helps to preserve, maintain, and distribute many thousands of rare heirloom seeds. They sell many seeds from their collection through their catalog (available in both print and online), but they also have a member-based annual seed catalog called The Yearbook where members list thousands and thousands of seeds, most of which are not available commercially, obtainable for a small fee.  At the Seed Savers Exchange Farm in Iowa, they conduct field trials from both collections each season, looking for varieties that are promising either because of their marketability (taste and appearance) and/or their productivity for gardeners and market farmers.  
Recently, they began M-GEN or the Member-Grower Evaluation Network as an attempt to expand these trials.  Through M-GEN, SSE members around the country like us participate in SSE's plant evaluation process, collecting valuable data about a variety's characteristics and productivity from our own field observation studies.  The data is used to improve SSE's database of information on its varieties, to guide other SSE members, and to determine catalog offerings.  
We first participated in M-GEN in 2012.  That season we evaluated "Ole Timey Blue" Collard Greens, which we still grow from seed saved that season.  Prior to growing them, we had grown several market standards.  "Ole Timey Blue" outperformed them on appearance, taste, and productivity.  The only category where the market standard was better was uniformity.  
This season, we have been asked to grow out four okra varieties: one is the market standard for organic growers "Clemson Spineless" (which we already grow) and the other three are rare, family heirlooms that are part of SSE's large collection.  The three rare varieties are: "Giant Red," "Hodnett Special," and "Rains."  "Giant Red" is a long-podded, red okra grown in Florida since at least the 1930s.  "Hodnett Special" is from the Hodnett Family of Rising Star, Texas that they have grown since 1947.  They cook it in their black-eyed peas.  "Rains" is from Dorris Smith of Alabama.  It was grown by her great-great-grandfather in the late 18th and early 19th century in Virginia and has been in her family ever since.
We are particularly excited about "Rains" for its history and "Giant Red".  We would like to compare "Giant Red" to a red okra that we currently grow "Bowling Red."  "Bowling Red" is beautiful, productive early and in cooler years, and less slimy when cooked.  

"Bowling Red" Okra

We seeded these trial varieties today and will keep you updated periodically as their evaluation goes forward.