Plant · P-331

Chinese Broccoli

Brassica oleracea var alboglabra

Chinese broccoli, or gai lan, is grown for its tender flowering shoots and small leaves, harvested at the bud stage before the flowers open - taking the terminal shoot forces side shoots, turning one planting into a run of repeat cuttings that can yield about 2 kg per square meter. It handles both heat and cold better than most of its cabbage-family relatives: it tolerates hotter summer temperatures than typical for the group, and once past the seedling stage it also shrugs off several degrees of frost. Getting that heat tolerance in practice comes down to choosing a warm-climate cultivar rather than whatever seed happens to be on the shelf.