30 days from direct sowing for baby veggies; 45 days for a succulent young plant; 70 days for fully mature pak choi.

The only pak choi you need, no matter how you intend to cook this delicious and versatile vegetable! Purple Hybrid is often grown just for its handsome violet leaves, so stunning above lime-green stems, or for its rich, intense flavor. But it is also more versatile than others, because you can harvest it at any point from about a month after sowing, depending upon how you want to use it!

Purple Hybrid grows quickly and easily in cool weather, quickly setting large, tender leaves of rich purple. At about 30 days, it is ready to be harvested as a gourmet baby veggie: steam the entire head for delectable, succulent eating! Or, if you prefer a bit more growth on this pak choi, let it grow another 2 weeks or so, harvesting around 45 days. Now you have a very young plant with more height and weight, the texture and flavor a bit more developed but the tenderness still great! Finally, for stir fries and stews, let it mature to full size at about 70 days. The mature plant is anywhere from 15 to 18 inches high and 9 to 12 inches wide, with weighty, flavorful stalks.

Purple Hybrid Pak Choi is best sown successively from late summer all the way to mid-fall, depending upon the first anticipated frost date in your area. Great fresh eating all season -- right through Thanksgiving in some climates! In very warm areas, it will also go into winter, or can be started in late winter for early spring crops. And of course it looks as good as it tastes, with those midnight-dark leaves with green undersides and bright green stems!

Pak Choi (or Bok Choi) is nutritious, easy to grow, and very quick. Purple Hybrid gives you so many options for harvest that you never have to worry if early frosts come to your garden. It's great to have a crop that isn't entirely dependent on a certain harvest date!

Seeds are best direct-sown, ½-inch deep, in rows about 2 feet apart. As the seedlings emerge, thin them according to the size at which you want to harvest them: baby veggies can be spaced 4 inches apart, while young vegetables need 6 to 8 inches of space, and fully mature plants need 12 to 15 inches. Pkt is 50 seeds.