Gadenin日本語Get the appThe signal is the first bud, not the size of the plant
Kailan is not harvested when it reaches a size. It is harvested at a moment, and the moment is when the cluster of buds at the top of the stem has just started to loosen and one or two of the outermost buds show a hint of yellow. At that point the stem below is at its sweetest and snaps cleanly, and the flavor has the faint bitterness the crop is grown for without any harshness.
That state usually arrives 55 to 70 days from sowing for a standard crop and around 40 days for a baby crop, but do not cut by the number. A hot spell pulls the date forward by a week and a cool one pushes it back, and two rows sown a fortnight apart can arrive within days of each other. Walk the bed every day or two once the plants are a foot (30 cm) tall and look at the bud clusters, nothing else.
Buds still tight and green is fine, and you can cut a day or two early with no real loss. What you cannot do is wait. Once several flowers are fully open the plant has switched its resources into setting seed, the sugars have gone out of the stem, and the fiber has set.
| What the bud cluster looks like | Verdict | Stem quality |
|---|---|---|
| Tight green knot, buds not distinguishable | A few days early | Good, slightly less sweet, no loss |
| Buds distinct and swelling, all still closed | Ideal | Sweet, tender, snaps cleanly |
| One or two outer buds showing yellow | Cut today | Peak flavor, the state to aim for |
| Five or more flowers open | Late | Base woody, top still usable, flavor thinning |
| Full spray of open yellow flowers | Too late | Stem stringy throughout, best composted or left for bees |
How to cut, and how high
Where you cut decides whether you get one harvest or six weeks of harvests. Cut low, leaving two or three leaves and at least one visible leaf joint on the stub, and the plant pushes side shoots from those joints. Cut high, taking only the top few inches, and you get a small crop now and a weak regrowth. Pull the whole plant and you obviously get nothing more at all.
Take a stem 8 to 10 inches (20 to 25 cm) long with its leaves attached. The leaves are as good to eat as the stem and there is no reason to strip them in the garden. Use a sharp knife or pruners and make one clean angled cut; a crushed or ragged stub rots in wet weather and takes the regrowth with it.
Cut in the morning while the plant is turgid. Stems cut in the afternoon heat go limp within the hour and never recover their snap even after chilling. If you must cut in heat, put the stems straight into a jug of cold water in the shade.
- Find the lowest leaf joint you want to keep Look down the stem for a joint 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) above the ground with a healthy leaf at it. That joint is where the next shoot will come from, so pick one that looks strong.
- Cut at an angle just above that joint Make one clean cut at about 45 degrees, half an inch (1 cm) above the joint. The angle sheds water and stops the stub rotting in wet weather.
- Leave two or three leaves on the stub Those leaves feed the shoots that follow. Stripping the stub bare after cutting is the most common reason a plant fails to produce side shoots.
- Feed and water the same day A high nitrogen liquid feed and a good soak straight after cutting starts the regrowth within four or five days instead of two weeks.
Test the cut stem with your thumbnail before you carry on down the row. If the nail goes into the base easily, the whole row is ready. If it will not mark the base, cut higher on the remaining plants and take a shorter stem.
What being two days late actually costs
It helps to be specific about the penalty, because the plant looks bigger and more impressive on the day it is past its best, and that is exactly why people wait. What is happening inside the stem is that lignin is being laid down from the base upward as the plant commits to flowering, and the sugars that were stored in the stem are being moved into the developing flowers.
The result is a stem that looks fine and eats badly. The base is the first part to go and the tip is the last, so a stem cut a couple of days late can still be salvaged by cutting the bottom third off and using the top. Beyond that point there is nothing to save.
There is one use for a plant you have missed. Left to flower, kailan produces a long run of yellow flowers that solitary bees and hoverflies work hard, and the hoverflies that turn up will lay eggs in the aphid colonies on your other brassicas. Leaving one missed plant to flower at the end of a row is a deliberate and useful choice, not a failure.
Handling and storage after cutting
Kailan wilts faster than broccoli because the stem has a large cut surface and thin leaves. Get it out of the sun immediately. A bucket with an inch (2.5 cm) of water in the bottom, standing in the shade, keeps stems crisp for the hour or two while you finish picking.
For storage, do not wash before chilling. Wrap the stems in a damp cloth or put them in a loosely closed bag in the coldest part of the fridge, ideally at 34 to 38F (1 to 3C). They hold well for four to five days and acceptably for a week. Washed and stored wet, they go slimy at the cut end in two days.
Kailan freezes better than most stem vegetables if it is blanched. Cut into finger lengths, blanch for two minutes in boiling water, chill in iced water, drain hard and freeze in a single layer before bagging. Unblanched frozen stems turn to mush because the enzymes keep working.
| Storage method | How long it keeps | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bucket of water in the shade | Two to three hours | For while you are still picking, not for storage |
| Damp cloth in the fridge at 34 to 38F (1 to 3C) | Four to five days at good quality | Do not wash first; wash on the day you cook |
| Loose bag in the fridge | Up to a week | Leave the bag open a crack or condensation rots the cut ends |
| Blanched two minutes and frozen | Six to eight months | Freeze flat on a tray first, then bag |
| Left on the plant | Zero | Stems only get worse from the moment the buds color |
Record the first cut date for every sowing
The single most useful record for this crop is the number of days between sowing and first cut, kept separately for each sowing through the season. That number moves a long way with temperature, and once you have a season of your own figures you can time sowings so that stems arrive when you want them rather than all at once.
Alongside the date, write down whether you were early, on time, or late, and what the stem was like. Three entries saying you were two days late is the clearest possible instruction to start walking the bed sooner next year, and it is the sort of thing nobody remembers accurately from one season to the next.