🥬 Shanghai Green Bok Choy
What it looks like
Why this variety
Shanghai Green is the green-stemmed bok choy: glossy dark green leaves over light green, jade-colored stems, in a compact vase shape. Seed houses list it at about 55 days to full size and 35 days for baby choy, and describe it as slow-bolting — the trait that makes it the variety recommended to gardeners who have struggled with bok choy before.
Green stems are a flavor clue as well as a color: Shanghai Green is mild and slightly sweet, with stems that stay tender even at full size. It is the bok choy for sautéing and roasting, where a white-stemmed type can turn watery, and it holds its shape in soup better than most greens.
If you are new to choosing between cultivars, the Varieties Matter guide explains why the name after the plant matters as much as the plant itself. And if you want the whole clan at a glance, the broader Bok Choy guide covers bok choy generally.
How to grow
In Florida, bok choy is a cool-season star: sow it from fall through early spring, give it afternoon shade if a warm spell hits, and harvest before the heat turns it to flower. A spring sowing that bolts is not a failure — it is a lesson in timing, and the fall sowing will forgive you.
Sow or transplant 8–12 inches apart, and harvest in stages: thin some plants young for baby choy, and let the rest grow into full hearts. Afternoon shade helps in warm weather, and steady moisture matters more than fertilizer for this crop.
Water & feeding
Bok choy grows fast and drinks steadily. Keep the soil evenly moist, mulch to hold that moisture, and feed with compost or a balanced fertilizer at planting and again halfway to harvest. Dry soil plus heat is the recipe for bolting, so water before the leaves wilt, not after.
Common problems
Flea beetles, cabbage worms, and slugs are the usual brassica pests; row cover and hand-picking cover most of it. Bolting in a heat wave is the real risk — plant for the cool season and keep the soil cool with mulch.
Harvest
Cut whole heads at the base for full-size harvest, or pick outer leaves for a cut-and-come-again supply. Baby Shanghai Green, harvested at 35 days, is tender enough to eat raw in salads.
Nerdy fact: The ‘Shanghai’ in the name is a type, not just a place: green-stemmed pak choi types like this one are the everyday bok choy of southern Chinese cooking, bred for tenderness rather than size.
Saving seeds
Shanghai Green is the green-stemmed bok choy: glossy dark green leaves over light green, jade-colored stems, in a compact vase shape. Seed houses list it at about 55 days to full size and 35 days for baby choy, and describe it as slow-bolting — the trait that makes it the variety recommended to gardeners who have struggled with bok choy before. As an open-pollinated bok choy it comes true from seed: in Florida, bok choy is a cool-season star — sow it from fall through early spring, give it afternoon shade if a warm spell hits, and harvest before the heat turns it to flower. Sow or transplant 8–12 inches apart, and harvest in stages: thin some plants young for baby choy, and let the rest grow into full hearts. Afternoon shade helps in warm weather, and steady moisture matters more than fertilizer for this crop. The full method is in the Saving seeds section of the Bok Choy guide.