Growing Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli): A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · August 10, 2026
Gai lan, also called Chinese broccoli or kailaan, is grown for its thick, tender flowering stalks rather than a dense broccoli head, with a milder, slightly sweeter flavor than standard broccoli.
Direct-seed and succession sow
Direct-seed from spring through midsummer, sowing 15 seeds per foot a quarter inch deep in rows 12 to 18 inches apart. Succession sow every 7 to 10 days for continuous harvests rather than one large flush.
Timing the cut
Harvest when the flower buds are just mature, or when a few have just started to open; waiting for a fuller bloom produces tougher, less desirable stems. Unlike komatsuna’s single-cut harvest, gai lan is a repeat-harvest crop: cutting the main stalk encourages side shoots to develop, giving multiple pickings from the same planting rather than one and done.
Gai lan has no recorded companions or antagonists in our data. See the full companion guide for gai lan for how it’s tracked. At 4 plants per square foot, it’s a repeat-cut brassica for the Garden Designer, useful for stretching a single planting across a longer harvest window than most brassicas allow.
Source: Asian Greens: Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Direct sow: Direct-sow outside. Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) doesn't transplant well, or doesn't need the extra time indoors.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 4 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1-1.5 ft.
Varieties worth considering
- Straight-species gai lan (Brassica oleracea var. alboglabra): Johnny's Selected Seeds sells this variety plain, without competing named cultivars; the growing method and stalk quality are traits of the variety itself. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy gai lan seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing gai lan (chinese broccoli)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli): Grown for its thick, tender flowering stalks rather than a dense broccoli head, a repeat-harvest crop unlike most brassicas in this dataset.
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