Days to maturity Bok Choy

This year, as well as growing the micro dwarf Hedou Bok Choy, I grew a baby bok choy and recorded its days from planting a seed until harvest.  These baby bok choy plants still grew incredibly fast, and they produced a more substantial plant than Hedou.  

I like the look of bok choy, I don't know why but there is something about it that just looks right.  Bok choy is very fast growing, extremely nutritious, simple to grow, incredibly forgiving of harsh conditions or poor soil, yet it is not really grown or eaten very much here.  It is sold in supermarkets, so maybe things are starting to change.  

Bok choy seems to cope well with cold weather when little else will grow.  This bok choy has survived frozen soil and temperatures down to -8C with only minor damage.  Being compact plants you can plant a lot in a small space, and planting new seeds every few weeks guarantees a long harvest.

Bok Choy could be harvested at a tiny plant stage, or larger plant stage so I recorded both dates.  Being in Australia, all dates are written Day/Month/Year.  

Baby Bok Choy (Brassica rapa)

Planted in garden      09/04/2023   Day 0

Germinate                 14/04/2023   Day 5

Tiny plants                17/05/2023   Day 38

Large plants              04/06/2023   Day 56

Baby Bok Choy - larger plants

Baby Bok Choy - tiny plants are edible

To see a full list of vegetable days to maturity recorded in my garden from planting seed until harvest, please click here.  

Tokyo Bekana days to harvest

I grew a few different Asian vegetables this year.  One that was new to me is a leaf vegetable called Tokyo Bekana.   I recorded the number of days from planting a seed until harvest.  

Tokyo Bekana is a small Chinese cabbage that is often used for baby greens and for bunching.  I can't explain its taste.  It is said to have a great mild lettuce flavor with a slight hint of peppery taste.  It can be eaten raw or cooked, and is used in any way that cabbage or lettuce is used.  

I am told Tokyo bekana can be substituted for lettuce, to me they look a lot like lettuce and taste a bit different to lettuce.  Tokyo bekana is also much higher in nutrients than lettuce, it isn't bitter, and in my garden seems to cope with extreme temperatures a lot better than lettuce.  

Tokyo bekana is said to be both cold-tolerant and heat-tolerant.  So far it has not shown any damage from frosts in my garden that were a bit below -8C.  So far it's had no pest damage, but that may be different if grown over summer.  

Days to maturity Tokyo Bekana (Brassica rapa chinensis)  

Planted in garden      09/04/2023   Day 0

Germinate                 15/04/2023   Day 6

Baby leaf                  14/05/2023    Day 35

Large leaf                  04/06/2023   Day 56

Tokyo Bekana is a cabbage that looks like lettuce

Tokyo Bekana on left, Senposai on right

Please see my Guide on Days to Vegetable Harvest a full list of days to harvest in my garden.  To make planning simple, I have recorded days from planting the seed until harvesting.  

Review Maze 245L Compost Tumbler

Some time after moving here we bought a new compost tumbler.   I believe it is a Maze 245 Litre Dual Compost Tumbler.  I have used it for a few years and thought I would write a review of my (less than positive) experiences.  

As you will be able to tell from my experience, this is not a paid review.  I stress that these are my experiences.  While I think this is a dreadful compost tumbler and you should go with a different one, you may have better luck.  

Maze Compost Tumbler rusting

I have used single compost tumblers before, and they worked well.  If you have a single compost tumbler, and add banana peels and tea bags etc every day, then the compost is never finished and ready to use unless you don't put anything in them for a while.  For this reason we decided to try a double compost tumbler.  

In a double compost tumbler you add scraps to one side.  It has a + on it to help you (and the kids) remember which side to add things.  

Then when it is full you swap the little doors so this side now has a clock on it.  This reminds you (and the kids) that you are no longer adding scraps to this side.  While that side is composting, you add scraps to the other side.  

Having the two sides makes composting very simple.  

Dual compost tumbler

First of all, the positives: 

The Maze 245L compost tumbler doesn't take up a lot of room, and it looks good.  It can fit a lot of lawn clippings or whatever inside.  It is efficient and simple to use.  It comes flat packed, and putting it together was pretty intuitive.  

This one has a handle that you use to turn the compost.  This is good, but it can be a little difficult to turn when both sides are full.  

Dual compost tumbler

Now for the negatives.

I think this is a waste of money that I will have trouble getting rid of after it breaks.  

The barrel turns around an axel that is made out of metal that corrodes.  Mine has almost rusted through.

I only use this for the purpose it was built for.  I have not put anything in it that isn't intended to go in it.  I have not used it more that is recommended.  I am not near the ocean and it has no salt spray or anything like that.  Yet it is rusting through.  Have a look at my pictures.  It is dreadful.

Once it starts to rust, the axel gets a hole in it that allows compost liquid and compost to get inside the axel.  This makes it rust from the inside as well as the outside.  This damage isn't from lack of care, or improper use, it is poorly designed.  

Given the price, I had hoped this would last a lot longer than this.

Maze compost tumbler rusting and falling apart

I have seen many pictures of this happening to other people's Maze compost tumblers.  I have also seen photos of the legs rusting through.  I am happy to say the legs on mine are not rusting noticeably (yet).

I don't expect this to last much longer before it falls apart and becomes unusable.  This thing was not cheap, and I have not got my money's worth from it.  I am irritated at how quickly the Maze Compost Dual Tumbler rusted and fell apart considering how expensive they are.  I spent extra because I wanted it to last.

What is even worse, once the shaft rusts through and the thing is useless I don't know how I am going to dispose of it.

This won't fit in my bin.  I dare say I will have to pull it apart as best I can, then try to hacksaw the larger parts to make them small enough to fit into my bin.  I will then have to slowly add pieces to my bin over many weeks/months before I can eventually be rid of it.  I will have a pile of broken compost tumbler for a long time, and I will have to remember to add as much of it as I can to the bin each week.  What a hassle!  

My verdict

My experience with the Maze 245L dual compost tumbler has been negative overall.  Based on my experiences I would not recommend anyone buying this (or anything else) from Maze.  

When I save up some money I will probably try a dual compost tumbler from another brand.  Hopefully whatever I get next works better than this.  

Giant Parsley Breeding

A few years ago I started breeding giant parsley (Petroselinum crispum).  Parsley used to be a common garnish when I was a child.  When I was a little older a sprig of parsley used to be put on steaks or other meals at restaurants, with the intention that it was discarded rather than eaten.  Since then it has fallen even more out of favour.  Some people still grow parsley, and a few eat it, but it is a largely underutilised crop.  

I wanted to develop a new variety of parsley to be big and productive, so it could be primarily used as a leaf vegetable.  Eventually I had a variety (albeit not a completely stable variety) of comically large parsley that dwarfs any of the 'giant' varieties.  The taste of this huge parsley is much like other flat leaf varieties, perhaps a little stronger. 

Then, for a number of reasons, I stopped my breeding project.  I felt my parsley was getting too big.  I stopped selecting for larger plants, and other than picking leaves I mostly ignored my parsley and let it do its own thing.   

Parsley almost as long as my arm

Parsley is great.  It is simple to grow and in my garden it self seeds reliably.  For this reason I still have a lot of parsley around, all of which is descended from my giant parsley breeding project.  As there were a few generations with no selective pressure, there may have been some genetic drift.  Some plants are far larger than others.

Recently I spoke to someone who wanted a giant parsley and complained about how tiny and unimpressive 'Giant of Italy' parsley is.  He convinced me that there is merit in making parsley huge.  

After that conversation I went to my garden and looked to see what size parsley I have to work with if I ever wanted to increase its size again.  

As you can see, I still have some plants with reasonable size.  According to Wikipedia, Parsley leaves grow 10cm to 25cm long in its first year.  My parsley produce leaves that are far larger than that.  The leaf above is almost as long as my arm!  I measured a few leaves from my largest plants, and they were over 60cm long.  Some were about 67cm long.  

Parsley leaf around 66cm (26 inch) long

Parsley leaf about 67cm (26 inch) long

This parsley is still pretty big.  I have a number of plants around this size, and between them they probably have all the genetic potential to get a bit larger if I put in some effort.  I also have some smaller plants, I won't be allowing these to flower so their genes won't be in the mix. 

I once wondered if parsley petioles (leaf stalks) could be large enough to be used instead of celery stalks.  I had put some effort into breeding for fatter petioles and they were getting quite thick.  All of the leaf stalks in the celery at the moment are still a bit thin.  Most are about 1cm to 1.5cm thick.  This is still a lot thicker than the stuff you find in the supermarket, but not thick enough to replace celery.  At this stage I am undecided if I care too much about how thick the stalks are.

The parsley plant itself gets rather large and bushy.  I put a tape measure from the soil to give a bit of perspective.  For most of its growing season they are about two feet tall.  This is too large to grow on a windowsill, but it is a good size to grow in the garden or a large pot.  As you can see, it has a lot of leaves that can be picked.

Over the years I have had a lot of people come to my house to buy plants and seeds.  Some of these people have been gardening since before I was born.  My giant parsley astounds everyone who sees it.  Some people have to pick some and taste it before they can believe that it is even parsley.  

When this parsley flowers it can get very tall.  They tower over me when they are in bloom.  I am not exactly sure how tall they get as I never particularly cared how tall they reach and never measured them.  Flowering height is not something I would put any breeding effort into, but I should measure it one day just out of curiosity.  

Some leaves have a lot of stem and not enough leaf.  Others have a lot of leaf and not too much stem.  I never paid a great deal of attention to this as I believe it may be highly influenced by the growing environment.  

You can eat the stems, or feed them to animals.  As well as being healthy for people to eat, parsley is great for animals.  Parsley leaves and stems are loved by our guinea pigs.  Our chickens also eat the parsley stems, but they much prefer the leaves.  If nothing else, the stems are good in the compost, so there is no waste. 

Over two feet tall

Look at the size of this monster

I find it odd how simple parsley is to grow, how productive and nutritious it is, yet how rarely we use parsley as a leaf vegetable.  Parsley leaves have a lot of vitamins and minerals, according to research it is very high in Calcium, Iron, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin A.  

Just 5.5 grams of fresh parsley, which is about 1.5 tablespoons, provides the recommended daily intake of Vitamin K.  

Parsley contains 133mg Vitamin C per 100 grams, which is higher than oranges which have about 50mg per 100 grams.  

Parsley has about 138mg calcium per 100 grams, while cows milk has about 120mg calcium per 100 grams.  

Parsley contains around 6.2 milligrams of iron per 100 grams. To put this in perspective, spinach only has about 2.7mg of iron per 100 grams.  

I find it strange to think that parsley is mostly used as a garnish in this country when it has the potential to be something so much more.  It is so easy to grow and apparently very nutritious.  Each leaf of my parsley is absolutely massive, and with a little more breeding work they would get a bit larger.  

My giant parsley

Parsley this big should be more than a garnish

I used to know someone who bred rabbits for meat.  He used to feed the young rabbits parsley to increase their growth rates.  He said that parsley's high levels of calcium helped their bones grow fast so they could get up to full size quickly.  He would also feed parsley to lactating mothers to increase their milk supply and because he thought the high amounts of iron would help them recover from birthing.  I have no idea if this is true or not, but it makes sense to me.  

I wish I was growing this huge parsley back then and could have given him some seeds.  One of these giant plants has the potential to produce more leaves than a large plot of regular flat leaf parsley.  

Parsley is an underrated herb

I sell seeds of my parsley through my for sale page.  It is not a stable variety, and may produce a few regular size plants.  It will also produce a lot of extra large plants, and a few mammoth plants.  They all taste the same, just prevent the smaller plants from flowering and you will ensure that each year your plants will be large.  If you want to grow a giant parsley that is edible and will impress people, then this is for you.  

Senposai days to harvest

I recorded the number of days from planting a seed until being able to harvest senposai.  I should probably write another post on senposai as its history is fascinating as well as complicated.  For now that will have to wait.  

Senposai is a cross between a European cabbage (Brassica oleracea) and an Asian cabbage called Komatsuna (Brassica rapa).  This means, according to the Triangle of U theory, senposai is considered to be Brassica napus.  See what I mean about Senposai having a complex history?  

I recorded the days to harvest from planting a seed below.  The number of days to harvest listed below are base on how it performed in my garden this year.  I don't give anything perfect conditions, it is just how they perform for me.  It may be a few days more or a few less under different conditions, and it probably grows faster with warmer weather.  Being in Australia, the dates are written day month year.  

Senposai (Brassica napus) days to harvest:  

Seed planted  25/02/2023   Day 0 
Germinated    28/02/2023   Day 3 
Baby leaf       01/04/2023   Day 35 
Harvest          08/04/2023   Day 42 

Senposai

Very few places in Australia sell senposai seeds, and almost nowhere sells leaves for eating.  This is unfortunate because senposai is fast growing, nutritious, easy to grow, and rather productive over a decent amount of time.  

Like virtually all brassicas, bees and other beneficial insects like its flowers.  Senposai is also easy to save seed from, and the senposai I grow is a stable variety that mostly breeds to to type.  

Tokyo Bekana on left, Senposai on right

Senposai can be eaten raw or cooked.  I dare say it could be fermented like most other cabbages, but I am yet to try that.  People also eat senposai flowers and flower stalks, I have not tried them yet.  

Poultry love to eat senposai leaves, as do our guinea pigs.  I probably wouldn't feed too much of this to a guinea pig as they can be a little sensitive to eating large amounts of brassicas.  Chickens on the other hand can eat as much senposai as I can give them.  

Unfortunately I can't find any reliable information on the level of crude protein or iron or anything like that.  Given its parentage, it is safe to assume that like most brassicas it would be highly nutritious.  

Senposai - ignore the holes

I grow everything organically.  You will notice the many holes in the leaves in my photos.  The holes were made by caterpillars that did some damage before I noticed them and fed them to my chickens.  The leaves still taste the same, the holes don't make a great deal of difference.  

Given that senposai only takes a month an a half to reach harvestable size, and it survives rather harsh conditions, and how it crops for a long time, I think I will grow more senposai.  I will probably need to save seed myself because so few places offer it in Australia. 

For a list of days to harvest for many vegetables and herbs, please click here.