Edible Asian Garden. Rosalind Creasy
‘Slo-Bolt’
Daikon: ‘Mino Early,’ ‘Red Meat’
Gai lon
Japanese onion: ‘Kuronobori’
Mizuna
Mustard: ‘China Takana,’ ‘Osaka Purple’
Mustard spinach: ‘Komotsuna’
Pac choi: ‘Mei Qing,’ Tatsoi
Peas: ‘Snow Pea Shoots’
Shungiku: ‘Round Leaf
Snow peas: ‘Sopporo Express’
Spinach: ‘Tamina Asian’
Turnips: ‘Market Express’
The Pleasures of a Stir-fry Garden
In the early 1960s, if you were interested in cooking, Cambridge, Massachusetts was a great place to be. Two of this country’s doyennes of cuisine held court there: Julia Child and Joyce Chen. Both were filming television shows, and Joyce, author of The Joyce Chen Cook Book, was teaching Chinese cooking classes at her restaurant. Living there, I caught the bug and I learned everything—from folding wontons to making béarnaise sauce. From Joyce, I learned one of the most valuable cooking skills you can acquire—how to stir-fry—which became especially pertinent years later, when I became a demon vegetable gardener. Vegetables are the stars of most stir-fries. As a bonus, the recipes are easily varied; one tablespoon of peas or a cup, it seldom matters.
Many years later, after having moved to California, the impetus for creating a specific stir-fry garden was set in motion. I shared a small, sunny part of my garden with a young neighbor, Sandra Chang. As fall approached, it occurred to us, as her mother, Helen, and I used much of my harvest for stir-frying, and so many Asian vegetables grow best in cool weather, that a garden of all stir-fry vegetables would be fun.
Together we chose ‘Joi Choi,’ a full-size, vigorous pac choi; ‘Dwarf Gray’ snow peas and ‘Sugar Snap’ peas; spinach; tatsoi and ‘Mei Qing’ dwarf pac choi; onions; carrots; cilantro; shungiku; ‘Shogun’ broccoli, and a stir-fry mix from Shepherd’s Garden Seeds containing many different mustards and pac choi. (Winters here seldom go below 28°F; gardeners in cold winter areas would do best to plant these vegetables in early spring.) I planted no Chinese cabbages, however; mine always become infested with army worms and root maggots.
We started seeds of broccoli and pac choi in August in a flat and direct-seeded the peas in the garden in September. My garden beds are rich with organic matter, so all we added was blood meal before planting. We had extra seeds of many of the greens, so we planted them in containers and grew them on my back retaining wall to see how well they would do. (They grew very well—we fertilized them with fish emulsion every four weeks.) The Shepherd stir-fry mix we planted in a little square of soil, about three by three feet, using the cut-and-come-again method. We prepared the soil well and broadcast the seeds like grass seeds, covered them lightly with soil, firmed them in place, and watered them in. We kept the bed moist and had great germination. We didn’t thin it, and the seedlings grew problem free—except for occasional slugs, which I controlled by making a few nighttime forays with a flashlight. The vegetables were ready for harvesting at about three inches tall. Using scissors, we snipped our way across the bed an inch above the ground, harvesting as much as we needed at a time. We found these baby greens great for salads and added at the last minute to stir-fries. We fertilized the bed with fish emulsion after harvesting and were able to harvest the greens a second time a month later.
A close up (opposite) of one of the cool-season beds with gobo and Shanghai pac choi to the left of the bird bath and mustard greens and cilantro on the right. A cut-and-come-again bed of stir-fry greens (below) is almost ready for harvesting.
The rest of the beds gave us more than enough vegetables for both families to have a stir-fry or two every week for about three months—great meals of carrot and snap pea stir-fries, chicken with broccoli, tatsoi with ginger, mixed greens with mushrooms and garlic, and oh so many more. Since that stir-fry garden, I have grown many smaller versions and still find them among the most satisfying cool-season gardens.
My stir-fry garden produced far more produce than my husband and I could ever use. My friend Henry Tran (above) comes by to cut some greens for stir-frying. Helen Chang (below) harvests cilantro from the stir-fry garden. A harvest from the Creasy stir-fry garden is shown on the opposite page.
The Creasy Summer Asian Garden
March was still colder than usual, but time yields to no one and it soon became the moment to start the summer vegetables, like peppers and eggplants, and the basils, and to order some of the Southeast Asian herbs. The seeds were planted in flats and kept on a warming mat a few inches from fluorescent lights. Germination was good and the plants were moved up to four-inch plastic pots in mid-April, but because it was so cold, they were kept under lights for a few weeks more. Finally they were so big they needed to be moved into larger containers and outside into my cold frame. Even April was very cold, so the plants were not put out until mid-May, when nighttime temperatures were finally above 55°F.
The weather remained colder than usual and July was the coolest on record—mostly overcast days in the high 60s. Some of the vegetables did splendidly in spite of the coolness including the squashes and cucumbers, the soybeans, leek flower, and onions. The eggplants and peppers did better in August as the weather improved—many days in the low 80s. However, my eggplants started to show signs of fusarium wilt (leaves randomly turning brown and the stems showing brown rings inside when cut.) They were in full production and it was painful but one by one we needed to pull them out. The yard-long beans, malabar spinach, and bitter melons, which all need hot weather, were still only three feet tall and never did produce. But all was not lost, by September the baby corn was ready—delicious—the hot peppers were in full production—spicy—and the cucumbers—over productive—and we were giving them away to all the neighbors. The ‘Siam Queen’ basil, bunching onions, amaranth, and the shisho all did well. And the winter squash ‘Autumn Cup’ was extremely productive and ran all over the garden. The squash themselves were rich and sweet.
All in all, the garden was a success but more stressful than most with all the cold weather. When I plant these hot-weather-loving vegetables again, I will start them under plastic hoops so they get more heat and I’ll plant my eggplants in containers. As always, the gardening adventure continues.
In my back garden (opposite) I designed a small herb garden that included the Asian herbs; mioga ginger, Oriental chives, lemon grass, and even a small container of experimental wasabe. (It is real tricky to grow and after a few months is up and has died.) Also in the beds were bush basil and winter savory. Last year’s summer Asian garden (above) had many successes: the bunching onions, lots of Japanese cucumbers and squashes, Thai and lemon basils, hot peppers, eggplants, and leek flowers. It was not hot enough for my malabar spinach, bitter melons, and yard-long beans to grow large enough to produce much.
Plants in the Warm-Season Creasy Asian Garden
Amaranth: ‘Green Leaf,’ ‘Red Leaf
Basil: Holy, ‘Thai’
Bunching onions: ‘Deep Purple’
Corn: ‘Baby Asian’
Cucumber: ‘Kidma,’ ‘Orient Express,’ ‘Suhyo’
Eggplant: