How to Regrow Bok Choy

I love gardening, especially organic veggie gardening! I have been a resident of Brevard County for most of my life. Our family moved from Rockledge to Melbourne a couple of years ago. In our old home we had a fenced in yard, raised bed gardens for my organic produce, mature maple trees, lots of orchids and tons of Florida natives. It wasn’t perfect, but it was my refuge. In our new home I have… well not much. I have the front entrance covered with my orchid collection but the back yard is almost barren. Most of my orchids came from the “almost dead discount rack” of my local home improvement stores. Meaning I’m not a hoytie toytie “orchid collector” …lol! I just enjoy being able to bring plants back to life. I’m definitely not the kind of person that likes to toot my own horn, but I am very good at growing just about anything. So, I have had great success with raised bed gardening in my old home, but in my current home I have not yet fully committed to a permanent yard design plan. So in the meanwhile it’s container gardening for me! I just want to say that seriously everyone should try this out.

Anyone from the apartment dweller to the person that has expansive acreage can enjoy container gardening. I already have started container heirloom tomatoes, basil, and a red navel orange tree this season but wanted to try a new challenge. This lead me to my first try at regrowing bok choy!

In the past, I have been very successful at taking the seeds out of organic heirloom tomatoes, and peppers that I bought and regrew plants from seeds. Actually, I have heirloom cherry tomato seeds, green pepper seeds, and poblano pepper seeds from my boxes that I am going to attempt to grow after they are dried out. So, I thought I would give regrowing bok choy a try. You can regrow a variety of veggies from cuttings such as green onions, celery, garlic, potatoes, pineapple, and many more. I have been successful at regrowing pineapple from a cutting before, but this was my first attempt at bok choy.

To start, I cut the leafy greens off of my Space Girl Organics bok choy leaving about an inch and a half at the root base (I used the top for a delicious stir fry….yum). I put the root base in a bowl of 3/4 inches of water on a sunny windowsill. I also made sure to replace the water as it evaporated in the following days.

After only one day I had growth! On day 3 it looked like a little plant.

On day 7 the bok choy was ready for transplanting into a pot. I’ve been keeping an eye on the bottom. It’s starting to slightly brown and since I want it to stay healthy I am going to transplant it into a pot with soil today.

Like most veggie plants, I’m going to be sure to keep it in well draining, moist soil. The growth was quite quick as you can see. This was a great lesson in quick plant growth for my 4 year old son who loved checking the new growth every morning. It’s day 9 now. Even though bok choy is a cool weather plant that should be more content in our fall or winter garden it is doing well outside in full sun. If it stops thriving because of the Florida heat the potted bok choy will move back inside to the sunny, yet cool windowsill environment from the air conditioning that it was thriving in. Being able to move a pot to change a plant’s environment is just one more reason I love container gardening! Happy gardening and experimenting everyone! : )