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Tokyo Bekana
Brassica rapa
Small Chinese cabbage for baby greens and for bunching. Great mild lettuce flavor with a slight hint of peppery taste. It is both cold-tolerant and heat-tolerant, so it can fill your greens gap in the summer when lettuce would start wilting. Chinese cabbages were first grown and improved in China. Japanese soldiers returned home with seeds after the Russo-Japanese war in the turn of the 20th Century. Tokyo Bekana is believed to be a selection from these early Chinese cabbages, and is still grown in rural Japan today (read more from Specialty Produce here). Popular with astronauts in space (read more here).
Thank you to Patch Farm of Denmark, Maine for the photo!
Days to maturity: 21 baby, 45 bunching
Seeds per pack: 175-190
Germination rate: 91% on 03/15/2024
Planting / harvesting notes
Seed every 1" in rows 8-12" apart, 1/4-1/2" deep. Keep watered until germination. Thin to every 6-12" for full heads, or treat as cut-and-come-again baby greens. Harvest baby greens after 21 days, or allow plant to mature in 45 days.
Seed keeping notes
Isolate by 1/2 mile from other flowering members of B. rapa, including turnips, napa cabbage, mizuna, and bok choy to avoid unwanted cross-pollination. Allow seed pods to turn brown and dry before seed harvest. Protect from birds.
