Gai lan , also known as Formosan Brassica oleracea italica or Taiwanese kale , is a really cool veggie that has yet to make it into the field of most hobby farmers . be intimate botanically asBrassica oleraceavar.alboglabra , gai lan is a unequalled variety of the same plant species asbroccoli , cabbage and cauliflower .
Like its cole - crop cousins , gai lan enjoys the cool weather of natural spring and fall , making it among the first crop to go into the garden each spring . It ’s also very cold hardy , and in many mood , seed sown into the garden in the former fall will continue growing through most of the winter with a protective bed of floating row screening or the tax shelter of acold frame .
Gai lan is a leafy green plant with comestible stalks , farewell and blossom buds . The farewell are a succulent , fleshy special K , and the plant create efflorescence heads that search much like broccoli , only smaller and looser . When open , the flowers are white . To reap , the finger’s breadth - thick shoot tips are cut from the plant , much like rapini or broccoli raab , just before the flowers are ready to open .
The savor of gai lan is a set like broccoli , though it ’s unquestionably sweeter and more mild . Its texture is lusciously tender . Gai lan is feature in many Taiwanese ravisher , as well as culinary art from other Asian region .
Growing Gai Lan
If you ’d care to grow a crop of gai lan on your hobby farm , you may eitherstart seeds indoorsunder grow Light Within in early wintertime , and then move the transplants out of doors as soon as the soil can be worked in the springiness , or direct - seed gai lan right into the field in early spring once the grease can be play . The plants are tight - grow and will produce their edible stalks in just six to eight weeks .
Gai lan semen can also be planted in the late summer or early autumn for fall and winter harvesting . In my Pennsylvania garden , I inseminate the seminal fluid now into the garden the last week of August .
pick out a spot that get full sunshine and give each plant plenty of way to develop . Even with regular harvests , the plant can reach a foot or more across . If you start the plants via lineal seeding , be sure to thin the seedlings to allow room for each plant life to reach its full mature size of it . The plants will continue to form new edible shoots until the conditions grows too fond , so continue to harvest them on a unconstipated basis for maximum production .
Bugs Be Gone
To forestall infestations of spell cabbage worms , cover your gai lan with a layer of float row screening to forbid the adult cabbage worm coquet from laying eggs on the plants , or utilise Bt - based constitutive pesticides to keep the small green dirt ball in hitch .
If you ’re looking to try something new - to - you and delicious in your garden this year , gai lan will not disappoint !
seed of gai lan are available fromBaker Creek Heirloom Seeds , Kitazawa SeedsandJohnny ’s Selected Seeds .
