The Asian cuisine is constantly growing in popularity. As a result people are constantly looking for fresh Asian vegetables. However, most of the time these vegetables are hard to find and even if you do find them, they can be quite expensive. Well, if you have some gardening skills we can teach you how to grow your own Asian greens so that you will never again have to rely on expensive supermarket produce. Check out the following Asian vegetable gardening tips so that you can always have access to fresh Asian veggies.
Easy to grow Asian vegetables
While some Asian vegetables are harder to grow, other are quite low maintenance. The most easy to grow vegetables are the bitter melon, the Bok Choy, the Chinese Okra, the Daikon, the Edamame, the Long Bean, the Mizuna, the Napa cabbage, the oriental mustard, the Shungiku, the Winged Bean and the winter melon. The bitter melon is a type of produce similar to the well known cucumber. It requires warm water, moisture and plenty of sun. The Bok Choy is a distant relative of the cabbage and it is grown in a similar manner. The Chinese Okra should be grown indoors and transplanted outside when there is no more frost danger. You should do this with most of your Asian produce as none of them are fond of frost.
Types of Asian produce
The are three main categories of Asian produce: leafy greens, crisp stems and tender flower buds. The greens usually need to be planted 12 weeks before the frost season. If the weather is to hot or dry you should grow them inside and transplant them outside when they are about 4 weeks old. Make sure that you thin them after germination in order to make enough space for the upcoming leaves.
Maintenance
The Asian greens presented above are pretty low maintenance so you needn’t worry too much about them. There are no sophisticated Asian vegetable gardening tips that we know off. However you should try to keep a clean, weeded soil with a constant level of moisture. Fertilization should be applied once the seeds germinate. Fish emulsion has proved to be quite efficient in encouraging more growth. The leafy greens should be protected against flea beetles. You can do this by growing arugula under a floating cover.
Harvesting
The leafy Asian vegetables can be harvested for salads after only 20 days after sowing seeds. Larger vegetables such as bok choy should be allowed at least 40 days in order to properly mature. The tender greens should be cut above the ground level in order for them to regrow.