Pre-Garden Experiment

Last year, I let a couple pak choi plants go to seed. In the fall, I collected the seeds for use in this year’s garden. I was a bit surprised that there were so many seeds in the dried little pods. I got probably five times more seeds than what I had gotten in the packet I originally purchased. That made me wonder if there was perhaps something special about the store-bought seeds. There must have been some reason for them to cost what they did. What if the ones I had collected didn’t grow?

Pak choi seed pods

Pak choi seeds – such lovely colors!

 So, I decided to run a little experiment to test the viability of my collected seeds. In late February, I planted a handful of seed in my starter tray. I had so many of them. It wouldn’t hurt if I “wasted” some to see if they would grow. In just two days, little seedlings were pushing their way up through the starter. Success!

Perfect little pak choi seedlings

The seeds were proven viable so, why not keep them going? Two weeks later, I transplanted a dozen of the seedlings into a couple of low, disposable tin baking trays. I used four trays for the improvised plantings. I took two trays and put a layer of river stones in the bottom. I poked holes in the bottoms of the other two and filled them with potting soil. Then, I put the trays filled with soil on top of the trays with the stones so that my two mini-gardens would have good drainage.

Seedlings in the tray gardens

Pak choi in the garden took just a little over a month to go from seed to harvest. A month after putting the experimental seedling into the trays, they were still on the small side. That was not much of a surprise. There really wasn’t much space for roots. The plants did look quite nice, though, with perfect miniature leaves. I feel, when planted in the garden, the seeds will do just fine.

Mini-toy choy

I gave the experiment another week or so then decided it was time to eat the test subjects. The twelve plants provided enough tiny pak choi leaves to add to a stir fry with fresh asparagus from the garden. While the plants never reached their full potential size, I am calling it a success and will confidently plant the saved seeds in this year’s garden.

Pak choi right after a watering