Growing Bok Choy: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Bok choy is one of the fastest vegetables you can put in the ground, ready in under two months, and its crunchy white stalks and tender leaves work in everything from stir-fries to soups. It’s also one of the quickest to ruin if you plant it at the wrong time of year.
Moving fast once it’s growing
At 50 days to maturity, bok choy moves fast once it’s growing, and it can go directly in the ground or be started indoors a few weeks ahead. The catch is heat: bok choy is prone to bolting as soon as spring temperatures climb, sending up a flower stalk and turning bitter before the heads size up. Many gardeners get more reliable results treating it as a fall crop, timed so it matures into cooling weather rather than rising heat. You don’t have to wait the full 50 days, either. Bok choy can be cut young as baby greens for stir-fries and salads instead of left to size up into a full head, which is useful for a late-planted fall batch that’s running out of season before it fully matures.
Bolting is a heat and timing issue, not a plant problem
Premature bolting is the defining problem with bok choy, and it’s almost always a heat and timing issue rather than something wrong with the plant. If a spring planting keeps bolting before it’s usable, shift the bulk of your bok choy growing to a late-summer sowing for fall harvest instead. Consistent moisture also matters, like most fast-growing greens, bok choy that dries out and rebounds is more likely to bolt early. General brassica pest pressure (flea beetles and cabbage worms) doesn’t care whether the plant has a documented antagonist or not; a lightweight row cover over young plants keeps both off without any spraying.
A fast fall crop that shares root space well
Bok choy pairs well with carrots and onions, the two don’t compete for the same root space bok choy needs, and onion’s strong scent may help mask it from pests. See the full companion guide for bok-choy. At one plant per square foot, it takes a full square in the Garden Designer, so plan fall successions around when your summer crops in that bed are winding down.
Companion planting guide for Bok Choy · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 1 ft
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Either works.
When to plant bok choy, by zone
Every zone bok choy grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Apr 15–Apr 22 | May 20–May 27 | Jul 9–Jul 16 |
| 3a & 3b | Apr 25–May 2 | May 30–Jun 6 | Jul 19–Jul 26 |
| 4a & 4b | Apr 10–Apr 17 | May 15–May 22 | Jul 4–Jul 11 |
| 5a & 5b | Apr 5–Apr 12 | May 10–May 17 | Jun 29–Jul 6 |
| 6a & 6b | Mar 21–Mar 28 | Apr 25–May 2 | Jun 14–Jun 21 |
| 7a & 7b | Mar 6–Mar 13 | Apr 10–Apr 17 | May 30–Jun 6 |
| 8a & 8b | Feb 18–Feb 25 | Mar 25–Apr 1 | May 14–May 21 |
| 9a & 9b | Jan 11–Jan 18 | Feb 15–Feb 22 | Apr 6–Apr 13 |
| 10a & 10b | Dec 26–Jan 2 | Jan 30–Feb 6 | Mar 21–Mar 28 |
| 11a & 11b | Nov 27–Dec 4 | Jan 1–Jan 8 | Feb 20–Feb 27 |
Harvest dates are about 50 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Bok Choy plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1 ft.
Good companions for bok choy
Full companion guide, including what to keep away from bok choy →
Varieties worth considering
- Joi Choi (F1): Rated 4.8 stars across four grower reviews in Cornell Cooperative Extension's variety database, with reviewers noting dark green leaves, broad flattened white petioles, and better bolt resistance than smaller baby bok choy types, a solid all-purpose choice for home gardens. (source)
- Win-Win (F1): A perfect 5.0 stars in Cornell's database, a 10-12 inch vase-shaped plant with thick, uniform white petioles at 52 days. Exceeded trial expectations on taste, texture, and both heat and cold tolerance, the pick if Joi Choi's larger size isn't necessary. (source)
- Mei Qing Choi (F1): Cornell rates it 4.8 stars, a true dwarf pak choy at 35-45 days, pale flat misty-green stems, bred for bolt resistance. The fastest of the three here, useful for squeezing in an extra succession before fall cold arrives. (source)
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy bok choy seeds
Botanical Interests · True Leaf Market (each supplier's bok choy seeds)
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing bok choy" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Bok Choy: A fast, cold-tolerant Asian green that bolts hard in spring heat, better treated as a fall crop than a summer one.
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