Saturday, July 3, 2010

Pak Choy stage by stage.

container 1

container 1

container 2

container 2

container 2

I intend to  post regularly on pak choy , once a week . It is good as a record for me, and something others can learn as well. It is not the first time that we grow pak choy here. The first attempt a few years back was as always, full of anxiety, but the harvest was excellent. Container gardening is most suitable for a small family like mine. I did try putting them in vegetable bed once or twice, but the hide and seek game with pests was a little too much to handle.

There are two containers used. The first is a shallow type and the second is deeper one.  I don't think depth matters too much with leafy vegetables. Pak Choy has fibrous roots that won't penetrate deep. The seedlings are a week old.  It is a lot easier to transplant seedlings when they are little babies with first pair leaves. Once they develop more leaves, more roots will develop. That will make it difficult to handle at transplanting.

Just for the fun of it, I did give a little bit of protection to the second second container. The red fabric is a rescue from onion sack we bought last year. It is quite unusual since most would use the black fabric. I don't suppose using red, will encourage pak choy to turn its leaves to red!.. It covers the container just for a while until the plants get stronger to face the blazing sunlight.

PAK CHOY STAGE 1

14 comments:

  1. It will be fun to follow their growth, lots of pictures please.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is Bangchik and Kakdah now whenever I see pak choy!

    I can see the little "lamp posts" turn into "little trees". Beautiful. Can't wait to see the next stage.

    ReplyDelete
  3. how adorable! love your garden!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I use black netting on my lettuces so they don't bolt as fast. The red onion netting is a good idea. Enjoy the fruits of your labor!

    ReplyDelete
  5. looking forward to it. I bet growing in containers will really help with pests - and the netting might be helpful too!

    ReplyDelete
  6. great recycling of netted onion bag! I have heard red attracts certain parts of the spectrum for growth. They make a red film for growing tomatoes. I love your blog, so mellow and beautiful. We will garden along together now.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love pak choy - I'm watching along with you Bangchik

    ReplyDelete
  8. good to watch and learn...

    ReplyDelete
  9. ~Doc
    ~AaronVFT
    ~Ocean Girl
    ~Melissa
    ~Rosey
    ~Wendy
    ~rainfield61
    ~Sara
    ~Rosie@leavesnbloom
    ~hazeltree

    Anxiety comes in whenever we do it first time, like growing a particular vegetable. After repeated attempts the amount of anxiety is reducing. But then gardeners will start looking into the angle of doing it better, with better harvest or bigger or healthier or greener.

    Over the many attempts, Pak Choy presents itself as being very quick at germination. The seeds seem to be beating the rest on roots and shoots appearing first. Pak Choy seeds maintain the standard of germination even with an older seeds.

    I dont collect Pak Choy seeds, they are all bought in packets. I just use at most 20 seeds. The leftover is kept safe. Other seeds seem to have diminishing effect on rate of germination, but not Pak Choy. That is the specialty of Pak Choy.

    With leaves still at the first pair, Pak Choy is doing well. In a day or two, they will be placed in a sunnier spot, to boost up its growth.

    Recycling of red netting is just a convenient thing to do. There should be more, to live up with the green movement. I was talking to a guy last night about green technology in general, and he mentioned about 3R approach. REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE. There we go friends.....

    It wont be too long before the lamp post Ocean Girl was mentioning, will lean and rest on the soil and start building up leaves and leaves.... The soil has been mixed with poultry fertilizer pellets and vermicompost. They should have enough nutrients available to the end. Just for the fun of it, I will still spray liquid fertilizer on the leaves, once a week.

    Happy Gardening everyone.
    Cheers,
    ~Bangchik and Kakdah
    Putrajaya, Malaysia

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh this is how we suppose to distribute the seed?? Mine all over the place.. *sigh*.. coz the seed was very tiny... just don't have idea how to handle..
    thank s for this stage by stage post..

    ReplyDelete
  11. Cath J ~ I actually germinate seeds in a little pots, 4 or 5 seeds in each pot. Once they germinate I loosen them from the little pots and transplant in the big container. Of course I can arrange them nicely at transplanting, its easy... haha.. Happy gardening....

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bangchik this is the first time i am placing a comment on your page although I have been following your gardening adventures for a few months. I am very new at it but slowly becoming more successful at it amidst may failures too. I just want to know where to buy vermicompost that you are using cos i have not been able to get it in Ipoh. So far I have been using compost, chicken pellets egg shells and fruit and vegetable enzymes as fertilizers. I am very thankful to all our local bloggers for sharing their insights on gardening.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alice..... vermicompost..., hmmm drop by any big plants nursery in Ipoh, ask for vermicompost... you can ask for baja tahi cacing if they dont know what's vermicompost.....

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...