Hedou Tiny Bok Choy days to maturity

Bok choy (Brassica rapa) is known for being a fast growing and nutritious vegetable.  Most bok choy varieties are relatively small and good for balcony farming.  This year I am growing a tiny extra dwarf bok choy variety called 'Hedou'.  

From all accounts, bok choy is a highly nutritious vegetable, very fast growing, and being extra compact in size makes Hedou bok choy super cutie.  All of this makes Hedou Bok Choi perfect for urban farmers and gardeners with limited space.  Being so cute and fast to grow also make it easy to get kids involved in gardening.  

Hedou Bok Choy

I grew some Bok Choy in pots for seed saving

The Hedou variety of micro Bok Choy seems to have some internet hype, yet very little actual information can be found anywhere on the internet.  There are a few pictures here and there, and a few places selling seed, but that is about all.

I grew some of these in the veggie garden between other vegetables where they took up next to no space.  Brassicas tend to cross pollinate like mad, so I grew some in small pots in my greenhouse for saving seed.  

As there is so little information around I decided it would be good if I recorded my progress to give an idea of what to expect when growing Hedou tiny bok choy.  The first time I soaked seed overnight, the second planting I didn't, I have recorded both below. 

Being in Australia, dates are written Day/Month/Year.

Hedou Dwarf Bok Choy 

Hedou Bok Choy gets some petiole/stem colour with high light

Days to maturity Hedou Bok Choy (Brassica rapa)

Seeds soaked       18/11/2022      Day -1
Seeds planted       19/11/2022     Day 0
Germinating         22/11/2022     Day 3
Heads forming     10/12/2022     Day 21   
Flowering            24/12/2022     Day 34    
Seeds ripe            25/01/2023     Day 67

I also planted some Hedou Bok Choy without soaking them first:  

Seeds planted     17/12/2022      Day 0
Germinated        20/12/2022      Day 3
Harvest from      13/01/2023      Day 27  (Note: most bolted to flower)
Flowering           16/01/2023      Day 30

On the face of it, three or four weeks seems like an absurdly short amount of time from planting the seed to harvest, especially when you consider that many other vegetables take 10 or so days to simply germinate. When I look at how small these plants are, and how quickly they germinated, it makes sense.  

To be clear, they won't always take three weeks, they may take four or five under harsher conditions, but this is still very fast.  

If conditions are bad (too hot, inconsistent watering, too cold etc) they may bolt to seed early.  The heat hit so my second lot bolted to flower.  If this happens you can harvest and eat them before they send up a flower stalk.  They still taste the same.  If you let the flower stalk get too tall they get a bit tough and stringy.  Once they have reached this point you can just allow them to flower and set seed.  Hedou is a stable heirloom variety that will breed true to type.  If your neighbour has any form of Brassica rapa flowering they will probably cross, any F1 seedlings will still be edible.  

Hedou Bok Choy grow fast, and are small at full size.  Most people eat several of these in a meal, meaning you harvest what you eat and you eat what you harvest - there is never any waste, and never anything to store.  You can also grow an awful lot of plants in a tiny space, so their small size can be an advantage.  

Hedou Bok Choy Flowering 

Hedou Bok Choy happily grows in a small pot of soil meaning it can be easily grown with no land and easily tended by children or the elderly.  This would be a great vegetable to grow in a school kitchen garden as the time from seed to harvest is so short.  

I think succession planting is key, each time you harvest some you plant some more seeds, and it does not take long to get into a rhythm that ensures a constant supply of this tiny yet nutritious vegetable.  Or if you had the space you could grow a patch of them and allow a few to self seed.  

One thing that surprised me was the short time it took Hedou Bok Choy to produce seed.  From planting a seed, until harvesting its seeds, was around ten weeks.  I am sure this could be less under different conditions.  This timing sounds pretty perfect for a school science project.  

Having such short generational time also makes me wonder if I should start a breeding project with it myself.  But that will have to wait.  For now I am happy growing it, eating it, and saving its seed.  There appear to be very few places in Australia selling Hedou Bok Choy seed.  At the moment I am saving seed to grow myself, once I have saved enough seed I will list it on my for sale page.

I have a blog post with days to maturity that includes a long list of vegetables and berries etc where I have recorded the number of days from planting a seed until harvesting the first crop. 

Goldfish Barrelponics Update 2

I wrote a previous post about my goldfish barrelponics.  It started getting too long so I am writing a second update with plants that work well in the longer term. 

After my barrelponics had been going well for almost two years I decided to clean out the gravel pot as it was full of roots.  I removed most of the plants, tore off most of their roots, and roughly cleaned most of the gravel and added it back to a milk bottle.  I had to cut the old milk bottle apart to get the gravel out as it was completely full of roots, so I have put everything back into a new milk bottle.  I then replanted a small amount of the plants.  

The few plants that were replanted were trimmed heavily to encourage new growth.  As you can see in the photo below, I did not have many plants after the cleanout.

Milk jug after being cleaned and plants trimmed 

I keep hearing how tomatoes are well suited to aquaponics.  So last summer I tried to grow some tomatoes in the goldfish barrelponics.  They grew, and produced some fruit, but they didn't love it.  

My soil grown plants out grew and out produced the aquaponic grow tomatoes.  I think this is because the tomatoes needed more room for their roots than the crowded 2 liter plastic milk bottle.  If they had a decent sized grow bed I think they probably would have thrived.

Starting to produce tomatoes

Tomatoes growing but not thriving

I tried growing watercress.  This did well, it grew and flowered and set seed, seedlings grew and flowered, but it was eventually killed by cabbage white butterflies.  Watercress grows best with cooler temperatures, so I will likely add some back in autumn once the butterflies have passed.

I tried growing variegated water celery and this did tremendously well.  It grew long runners into the water and over the side of the barrel.  I cut it back hard and pulled out arm fulls of the stuff.  I cut it back hard a few times.  Unfortunately I think I pulled out too much the last time as it hasn't really grown back after that.  It may do ok now there is room in the jug for its roots to spread so I have added a tiny plant to see how it does.

Mint and silverbeet failed to thrive in my gold fish barrelponics.  They both did ok for a time, but didn't thrive and they are no longer growing in there.  I find this odd as mint is known to be overly aggressive in aquaponics, and silverbeet growing in my garden gets truly massive.  Perhaps it is too sunny or not sunny enough or something where my barrel is.  I think mint could work well and I may try to grow mint in there again one day.  

I tried kangkong in the barrelponics, it failed miserably.  I honestly believe kangkong would love aquaponics, but it is not suited to my climate.  That's too bad, I really like kangkong.  I will have to grow kangkong some other way.  Perhaps kangkong would do better in aquaponics if protected in my greenhouse rather than exposed to the elements like it is in the barrelponic.  I should write a blog post on this later.  

In my climate, for longer term growth with less work from me, Vietnamese coriander seems to be the winner.  Vietnamese coriander grows very fast, and seems to survive a lot of conditions that are meant to kill it.  It seems to clean the water really well.

As well as growing Vietnamese coriander in my barrelponics, I also grow some in the garden and some in my greenhouse.  The greenhouse plants have their roots in soil that is an inch or so under the water.  It seems to do quite well growing as an emergent pond plant and gets pretty big.

Vietnamese coriander in greenhouse a few weeks after planting

Vietnamese coriander grows large.  Watercress spilling onto the floor 

I cut off the Vietnamese coriander from my grow bed from time to time.  This makes the plants grow faster and quickly suck nutrients out of the water.  

After cutting it off I feed some to the chickens or put it in the compost, and last time I put some in a container with some water with the plan of doing something with it later.  Then I forgot about it.  Sometimes I would see it go limp so I would top up the container and think I should do something with it later, and each time I would forget about it.

This edible herb loves water, it smells great, and grows fast.  Below are the roots that the trimmings grew using nothing but water.  As you can see, they pretty much filled the entire container with roots.  There was only water and a few cuttings, no soil, it turned into an almost solid block of roots.

This Vietnamese coriander with that block of roots gives me options.  I could throw it into the compost, I could remove most of the roots and plant it in the garden where it would thrive, or I could use it for something else.  

In my greenhouse I had a tub of water filled with algae.  This tub is adding weight so the wind didn't blow my greenhouse away.   

After two days the water was still green but noticeably less turbid, and the roots had grown noticeably.  It didn't take long before the Vietnamese mint had cleared the water!  Now I am considering putting some fish in that tub.  From memory the tub is only 42 liters so is a bit small for goldfish, perhaps a smaller cold water fish would do well in there.  

Having a small aquaponics set up in my greenhouse sounds like fun.  It could be similar to my barrelponics, but with a different species of fish and probably a flood and grow bed on the shelf above so I can grow some edible plants in there.  Being in the greenhouse, perhaps kangkong and other tropical vegetables may perform well in that grow bed.  

Vietnamese coriander about to go into its new home

I am really impressed with my goldfish barrelponics.  For almost two years it has worked well, and I have learned a lot from it.  The original ten fish are all still all alive, they have all grown, and they have laid eggs a few times.  I am enjoying my fish and putting in very little effort to keep them healthy. 

Goldfish Barrelponics Update 1

I have had a barrel with ten shubunkin goldfish for a little under two years.  Time really flies.  I think it is time to do an update on how things are going after this time.  

One barrel with ten goldfish is WAY overstocked.  With normal filtration and weekly water changes this system would have crashed and some fish would have died by now.   

I don't do water changes in the barrel any more, yet the fish are growing, laying eggs, and even though there is a lot of sun on the barrel the water is usually clear.  These goldfish are growing large, and produce a lot of waste, yet the water is clean enough that they lay eggs.  

The only reason that this is working is because the water is being cleaned by plants.  This is very simple aquaponics on a small scale.  Aquaponics in a barrel = barrelponics.  

How Barrelponics works: 

• I feed the fish (some fish food, but also duckweed and azolla);
• the fish produce waste in the water;
• the nutrient rich dirty water is pumped through a gravel pot;
• bacteria living on the gravel convert the fish waste to less toxic substances; 
• plants growing in the gravel extract the nutrients from the water;
• cleaner water returns to the barrel;  
• the cleaner water is aerated as it splashes back into the barrel.

Vietnamese coriander taking over aquaponics

I bought a cheap solar pond pump.  This pump runs when the sun is shining, and stops overnight or when it is cloudy.  As the pump is at the bottom of the barrel it is pumping water from lower down in the water column, this gets cleaned by plants and is aerated as it enters the top of the barrel, this ensures that water is circulating through the entire barrel.

Over winter we may have weeks of cloudy weather where the pump does not turn on.  During this time the water is cold, and the fish are not very acting nor are they eating much or producing much waste.  Cold water holds more oxygen than warm water, and the fish use less oxygen when they are cold.

During summer the fish are very active, eating a lot, laying eggs, and producing a lot of waste.  Being hot means the water holds less oxygen, plus the fish and plants are both taking a lot of oxygen from the water.  During this time the pump is on all day, oxygenating the water.  Plants grow faster in warmer weather, so they are extract more waste from the water during this time.

I am pumping the water through a 2L plastic milk bottle filled with drainage gravel.  You could easily use something that looks nicer than a milk bottle, or different gravel, but I wanted to keep this cheap.  The plants are growing in the gravel are plants I already grew elsewhere.  It is very low tech and very cheap.

It is a good little system.  Other than feeding the fish, occasionally topping up the water in the barrel, harvesting herbs and things, and enjoying watching the fish, I don't do anything.  

Vietnamese coriander, Brahmi, and water celery

My barrelponics is intended to clean the water, any herbs or vegetables produced is just a bonus.  For this reason I am growing whatever grows and clears the water best.  I have vegetable gardens to produce food, this is just a filter.  

I also have a small floating pot of herbs in the water.  It has roots extending into the water.  The plants grow well and I have to cut it back from time to time.  I don't think this is doing anywhere near as much as the milk bottle when it comes to cleaning the water, but every little bit helps.  It is also nice for the fish to have roots to swim through, and insects see to live among the roots and are eaten by my fish.

I also grow duckweed and azolla in the barrel.  The fish tend to eat this and I have to add more from time to time, so it is more for their food than cleaning their water.  Duckweed and azolla are great because if we are going away I can put a few extra scoops of azolla and duckweed in the barrel and I know that the fish have high quality food while I am away.  Unlike bought food, azolla and duckweed won't foul the water, the fish won't over eat no matter how much is in there, it lasts longer because it reproduces, and it is high quality natural feed for the fish.

Azolla, duckweed, and floating pot of herbs

It's almost like a waterfall in there

The fish are growing - the water needs topping up

I originally planted a bunch of different plants in the barrelponics to see what works best in my climate over a longer term.  I expected some to perform well over summer, and other to perform best over winter.  Out of all of them the Vietnamese coriander (Persicaria odorata) thrives the best all year and pretty much took over.  

If you look closely you can see that there are still a few different things in the pot, but not many of them.  The Vietnamese coriander does not grow over winter in the garden, and slows growth over summer in the garden, but in aquaponics it grows all year and absolutely thrives during warmer weather.

Over winter I leave the shabby growth.  We get some hard frosts and this partly dead stuff protects the plants from freezing.  Once the weather warmed I cut all that off and let everything grow anew.

Goldfish Barrelponics over winter 

Over summer most of the barrelponic plants grow very fast.  I mostly grow leafy things as they use a lot of nitrogen, but have tried a few fruiting vegetables with limited success.

This post seems to be getting a bit too long, so I will stop here.  If you are interested I will write a second update about different plants I tried in barrelponics.  Some worked for me, while others didn't.

Orchard swallowtail butterfly (Papilio aegeus)

The orchard swallowtail butterfly (Papilio aegeus) is a native Australian butterfly that is rather beautiful and relatively common.  

The caterpillars of this butterfly eat a few native plants, and they are particularly fond of citrus.  

As their young thrive on citrus, and many homesteads grow lemons and other citrus, the orchid swallowtail butterfly are one of the few animals that has benefitted since the arrival of Europeans.  I think they are pretty common up north and near the coast, so much so they can be a pest, and they are far less common down here where we get cold winters. 

We have a lovely productive Meyer lemon tree.  These butterflies lay their eggs on this tree, but the tree is so prolific, and there are usually so few caterpillars that they do very little damage.  I am happy to share the lemon tree with them.  We don't miss a few leaves, and we enjoy watching the butterflies.

Last autumn we found an orchard swallowtail chrysalis on our house near the lemon tree.  If all went well it would overwinter like this and hatch out in warmer weather.  

Spring came and it did not hatch, so I had a bad feeling it may have been dead.  The weather warmed, and summer began, and it still didn't hatch.  Not a great sign.

Then just before Christmas we had a nice surprise.  A beautiful male orchard swallowtail butterfly had hatched out of the chrysalis and was drying his wings!  

I am grateful that he wasn't dead.  My kids got to see (but not touch) him, which they found very exciting as they had grown rather attached to the chrysalis.  I'm really glad we got to see him after waiting for such a long time, there was a really high chance that even if everything went well he would have hatched out and left before we ever got to see him.  I took a few photos, other than that we left him to do his thing.  

After his wings were dry he flew away. 

Butterfly next to his empty chrysalis

Butterfly drying his wings

Orchard swallowtail butterfly

I wish you well little butterfly.