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Tatsoi
A flat, ground-hugging rosette of dark glossy spoon-shaped leaves - one of the hardiest and sweetest salad greens there is, cuttable at 21 days and standing through hard frost.
Entirely edible raw or cooked - dark spoon-shaped blades and crisp white stalks alike - and one of the mildest greens in the cabbage family. Very high in vitamin K, so anyone on blood-thinning medication should keep their intake steady rather than swinging. Raw brassicas in enormous daily quantities can affect thyroid function in iodine-deficient people, which is a non-issue for normal eating and reduced further by cooking. The flat rosette sits on the soil and traps grit, so wash it thoroughly.
Overview
Tatsoi is the one that looks like a dark green flower lying on the soil. Instead of standing up like bok choy, it spreads into a flat, symmetrical rosette a foot or more across, made of small round spoon-shaped blades - deep glossy green, almost black in cold weather - on short crisp white stalks. It is a strikingly handsome plant, and a very good one to eat: mild, sweet and juicy, with only a whisper of mustard about it.
Its two headline qualities are speed and cold. Baby leaves cut at around 21 days and a full rosette at about 45, and once established it is among the hardiest greens a garden can hold, taking hard frost standing and surviving well into the teens. Better still, frost improves it: like kale, tatsoi converts starch to sugar in the cold, so the sweetest leaves of the year are the ones you cut in November and January.
One correction worth knowing. Tatsoi is usually shelved under mustard greens, but it is a different species: tatsoi is Brassica rapa, the species of turnip, napa cabbage, bok choy, mizuna and komatsuna, while the true leaf mustards are Brassica juncea. That has no effect on how you grow them side by side. It reverses the isolation rule if you save seed - see Propagation.
The one habit to plan for is the flat shape itself. The rosette sits on the ground, which traps splashed soil and gives slugs an ideal roof, so mulch under it and wash it well.
Quick facts
- Sprouts in
- 6 days4 to 10
- Soil to sprout
- 70 °F50 to 85
- Start indoors
- 4 weeks before transplant3 to 5
- Life cycle
- Annual
- Seed to save
- About 110 days after planting90 to 130
- Height
- 7 in4 to 10
- Spread
- 12 in6 to 16
- Cold
- Takes hard frostdamaged below 10°F
- Heat
- Struggles above 80°F
- Self-sows
- Yes, expect volunteers
Full sun or part sun or part shade · medium water · well-drained soil · 8 in apart (2 to 10) · direct sow or transplant
When to plant
Fall sowing is open for 4 more days. Next: spring, Apr 10 to May 8.
- Direct sow Aug 16 – Sep 25 Closes in 4 daysAbout 10 weeks before to 4 weeks before your first frost (Oct 25 here)The crop to plan around. Rosettes mature into cooling weather with no bolting pressure, frost sweetens them, and in most of this range they stand through winter under a low tunnel and keep cutting.
- Direct sow Apr 10 – May 8 Opens in 201 daysAbout at to 4 weeks after your last frost (Apr 10 here)Spring is the bolt-prone season: a cold spell on a young plant vernalizes it and it runs to flower instead of forming a rosette. For full rosettes, wait until nights are reliably above about 50°F. A baby-leaf cutting bed can go in earlier because you harvest before bolting matters.
- Transplant Aug 26 – Sep 20 Opens in 339 daysAbout 9 weeks before to 5 weeks before your first frost (Oct 25 here)Transplants buy a couple of weeks on the harvest date, which can matter for a late fall sowing in a short season. Set them out no earlier than you would sow - a chilled young plant vernalizes more readily than seed still in the ground.
Frost here: last around Apr 10 (Mar 27 to Apr 24 most years), first around Oct 25. Zone averages, your own yard may run a week or two either way.
Life stages
Five stages, about 4 weeks from sowing to the first pull. Windows are typical; your zone and weather move them.
Germination
Day 0 to 6 from sowing- WaterKeep the seedbed evenly moistdailySow 1/4-1/2 inch deep into cool-to-warm soil and don't let the surface crust. Germination is fast and even - 4 to 6 days is typical - so a patchy stand usually means a dry bed, not bad seed.
- ProtectDon't rush a spring sowingLike bok choy, tatsoi can be vernalized by a cold spell on a young plant and then bolt instead of making a rosette. For full-size rosettes in spring, wait until nights sit reliably above about 50°F; a baby-leaf cutting bed can be sown earlier because you harvest before it matters.
Watch for- Slow, uneven germination in soil below 50°F
Seedling
Day 6 to 20 from sowing- ThinThin by how you plan to cut itBaby-leaf cutting bed: leave it dense at 2-3 inches. Full ground-hugging rosettes: thin to 8-10 inches, because a mature plant spreads a foot or more across. Eat every thinning.
- ProtectCover against flea beetles and slugsFloating row cover from the day of sowing keeps flea beetles off the leaves you want unblemished, and with the edges sealed to the soil it also stops slugs shearing off a seedling row overnight.
Watch for- Shot-hole peppering on the first true leaves (flea beetles)
- Seedlings vanishing overnight (slugs)
- Cold-shocked seedlings (bolting risk later)
Rosette forming
Day 20 to 42 from sowing- WaterWater steadily and never let it stallevery 3 daysTatsoi is mostly water and grows fast. Even moisture keeps the stalks crisp and the flavor sweet; any check from drought, heat or crowding pushes it toward bolting and bitterness.
- MulchMulch under the rosette to keep it cleanThe plant lies flat on the ground, so rain splashes soil into the crown and it can sit in mud. A thin straw or fine-bark mulch under the leaves keeps the harvest clean and cuts the washing job dramatically.
- FertilizeLight nitrogen keeps the rosette fillingevery 3 weeksA light nitrogen feed every three weeks keeps growth quick, and quick growth is what makes tatsoi sweet and tender rather than tough.
Watch for- Central stalk rising from the middle of the rosette (bolting)
- Aphids down in the packed crown
- Yellowing lower leaves sitting in wet soil
Harvest
Day 21 to 45 to the first pull from sowing, picking to about day 110- HarvestCut the whole rosette at the soil lineThe classic harvest: at about 45 days, slice the whole flat rosette off just above the crown with a knife. It looks like a dark green flower on the cutting board and cooks or plates whole.
- HarvestOr pick outer spoons and let the center keep goingevery 5 daysCut-and-come-again: take the outer spoon-shaped leaves a few at a time and leave the central growing point. One plant supplies a kitchen for weeks this way, and a sheared baby-leaf bed regrows for another cut in 2-3 weeks.
- HarvestLet frost sweeten it before you pickCold converts starch to sugar in tatsoi as it does in kale. Leaves cut after the first frosts are noticeably sweeter, so a light freeze is a readiness cue rather than damage.
Watch for- Frost = sweeter leaves (a good sign, not damage)
- Grit trapped in the flat crown (wash thoroughly)
- Bolting stalk rising - cut everything now
Winter standing
Day 120 to 220 from sowing- ProtectCover it and keep cutting through winterTatsoi is one of the hardiest salad greens there is - established rosettes take hard frost standing and survive well into the teens, and under a low tunnel or cold frame they keep giving cuttings through the coldest months. Growth slows to a crawl but does not stop.
- HarvestTake the spring buds before they bloomAn overwintered plant bolts in spring. The flowering shoots and unopened buds are sweet, broccoli-raab-like eating - harvest them before the yellow flowers open, then pull the plant.
Watch for- Leaves flattened and glassy after a hard freeze (usually recovers - wait before judging)
- Spring bolting (harvest buds, then the plant is done)
Harvest
- Baby leaves 2-3 inches, about 21 days from sowing
- Full flat rosette 8-12 inches across, about 45 days
- Dark, glossy spoon-shaped blades on crisp white stalks
- Sweetest after a light frost - cold turns starch to sugar
- Cut before a stalk rises from the center of the rosette
- Cut the whole rosette at the soil line
- Or pick outer spoons and let the center keep going · every 5 days
- Let frost sweeten it before you pick
Per plant 20 to 80 leaves, 6 to 32 ozPicking cut and it regrows
Cook with Tatsoi
Watch out for
6 to know. 2 are high-risk: Slugs & Snails, Flea Beetles. 6 are active in September.
Slugs & SnailsSeverity High PestnowWorse here than on most greens because the flat rosette is itself a daytime shelter - they live under the plant they are eating.
Mulch the ground for cleanliness but keep it pulled back from the crowns, patrol at dusk in wet spells, and consider the upright yukina savoy types instead where slug pressure is severe.
Irregular ragged holes chewed out of the middle of leaves and along the edges - not the clean-edged cuts a caterpillar leaves. Seedlings that vanish overnight, or that are cut off at soil level with nothing left behind. Silvery dried slime trails across leaves, soil, pots, and paving in the morning: this is the giveaway that tells you it was mollusks rather than an insect. Chewed pits in ripe fruit, especially where it rests on the ground. Damage that shows up on the lowest, dampest leaves first and gets worse after rain or evening watering. Turn over a board, an upturned pot, or a clump of dense mulch during the day and look for the animals themselves sheltering in the cool underneath.
Hand-picking works and costs nothing: go out an hour after dark with a headlamp, drop what you find into soapy water, and repeat nightly for a week or two - persistence is what wins, not any single product. Shallow beer traps sunk to soil level catch them too, but need emptying and refilling daily to be worth anything. Iron-phosphate bait is the standard control and is far lower-risk around pets and wildlife than the old metaldehyde products, but it is not harmless: many formulations include EDTA, and a dog that eats a quantity of pellets can develop iron toxicosis. Scatter it thinly per the label, never in piles, and keep dogs off a baited bed. Clear fallen foliage and debris in autumn, where the eggs are laid. In a wet climate this is a population you manage each season rather than one you eradicate - and on most established plants light grazing is cosmetic and needs nothing at all.
Take away the daytime shelter first: lift boards and upturned pots, clear piles of debris, keep dense mulch pulled back from crowns and stems, and give crowded plantings enough airflow to dry out. Water in the morning rather than the evening so the surface is dry by the time they come out. Copper tape around containers and raised beds gives them a shock they will not cross, and it is the one barrier that reliably works. Get plants past the vulnerable stage quickly - start seedlings in pots and set them out at a decent size rather than direct-sowing into a cold wet bed, since most plants stop being worth defending once the leaves toughen. Leave the ground beetles, frogs, toads, and ground-feeding birds alone, because they eat mollusks all night for free and broad-spectrum slug pellets kill them too. Where thick-leaved or resistant varieties exist for what you are growing, they take far less damage.
Slugs and snails are nocturnal mollusks that rasp ragged holes in soft leaves, shear off seedlings at ground level, and chew into ripe fruit that touches the soil. They feed at night and in the early morning and spend the day hidden under boards, pots, dense mulch, leaf litter, and low foliage, becoming active in exactly the cool, damp, shaded conditions that suit young plants. Damage is heaviest in wet spells and on tender spring growth: a single wet week can erase a row of seedlings while an established, tough-leaved plant of the same species is barely marked. They lay clusters of small pearly eggs in damp soil and under debris, so a garden with plenty of cover carries a resident population year after year rather than being invaded from outside.
Flea BeetlesSeverity High PestnowThe leaf is the crop, and a peppered rosette that is meant to be plated whole is spoiled even though it is perfectly edible.
Row cover sealed to the soil from the day of sowing, plus fall sowings that miss the beetles' peak, is what keeps a harvest presentable.
Dozens of pinhead-sized round holes peppered across the leaves, thickest on the youngest, most tender growth. Tiny beetles that spring away as you brush the plants or lean in for a closer look - that jump is the identification. Seedlings that go lacy and stop growing, and transplants that sit and sulk instead of taking off. Damage heaviest in warm, dry weather and along the edge of a bed nearest weedy ground or last year's crop debris. On root crops, shallow narrow grooves or channels scarring the skin at harvest, from larvae feeding underground.
Row cover and healthy fast growth carry most crops through, and on an established plant the damage is usually cosmetic and needs nothing at all. Where a young planting is genuinely being stripped, kaolin clay coats the leaves and deters feeding, and spinosad will knock the beetles back. Spinosad is acutely toxic to bees while the spray is still wet - apply it at dusk when bees are not flying, never onto plants in flower, and follow the product label. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating, and you must observe its pre-harvest interval on a crop you are picking. Yellow sticky traps are useful for telling you when the beetles have arrived. Where the damage falls on the part you eat, harvesting young often beats them outright; where you are growing for a root or a fruit, leaf damage can simply be tolerated. Larvae feeding underground cannot be reached by a foliar spray, so rotation and clean beds are what work against those.
Floating row cover or fine insect mesh, laid over the bed from the day of sowing or transplanting and sealed at the edges so nothing can walk in underneath, is the single best defense - and on the crops they favor it is close to essential. Leave it on until plants are large and growing strongly, or until flowering on anything that needs pollinating. Push growth: a well-watered, unchecked plant outgrows the damage, so the whole game is getting seedlings through their vulnerable weeks fast. Keep beds weed-free, since related weeds host the beetles alongside your crop, and clear crop debris at the end of the season where the adults overwinter. Rotate away from a bed that grew a related crop last year. Where you can, shift sowing dates - cooler-season and fall plantings often miss the peak of adult feeding entirely.
Flea beetles are tiny dark beetles - often shiny black or bronze, rarely more than a couple of millimeters long - with enlarged back legs that let them spring away like fleas the moment you lean in. The adults chew countless small round pits and shot-holes through leaves, giving the foliage a peppered, buckshot-riddled look. They overwinter as adults in leaf litter, hedgerows, and crop debris, emerge hungry in spring, and are worst in warm dry spells. The damage is mostly a seedling and transplant problem: a small plant with a few leaves can be checked, stunted, or killed outright, while the same plant shrugs them off once it is large and growing strongly. Different species specialize on different plant families, so the beetles hammering your brassicas are not the ones on your nightshades. Some species also have larvae that feed on roots and tubers underground.
AphidsSeverity Medium PestnowThe gray waxy cabbage aphid packs into the tight center of the rosette where a hose jet cannot reach.
Quarter a whole rosette and soak it before eating raw, and under a winter low tunnel shear a colonized patch back hard rather than spraying a salad leaf.
Dense clusters of tiny insects packed onto shoot tips, flower buds, and the undersides of young leaves. Curled, cupped, or distorted new growth that never opens properly. A sticky shine on the leaves - and on whatever sits under the plant - that later goes black with sooty mold. Tiny white cast skins left behind where a colony has been feeding. Ants running steadily up and down the stems, which is often the first thing you notice. Mottled, streaked, or misshapen leaves that do not grow out can mean a virus the aphids brought with them rather than the feeding itself.
Knock the colonies off with a hard jet of water and repeat every few days - on most plants that alone ends it. Pinch out or prune off the worst-infested tips rather than treating the whole plant. If colonies keep rebuilding, spray insecticidal soap or horticultural oil directly onto the insects, covering leaf undersides, and repeat weekly until they are gone; treat early or late in the day, and never spray a wilted or heat-stressed plant. Avoid broad-spectrum insecticides - they kill the ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps that were about to solve the problem for you, and aphid numbers usually come back worse afterward. Anything you spray must be labeled for the plant you are treating; follow that label and observe its pre-harvest interval. On anything you eat, wash leaves, heads, and buds well before use, since aphids hide down in crowns, folds, and tight growth.
Go easy on nitrogen: the soft, lush growth that heavy feeding produces is exactly what aphids breed on. Check new growth once a week through spring and early summer so you catch colonies while they are still small, and rub the first few out with your fingers. Leave flowering plants nearby and skip broad-spectrum sprays - ladybugs, lacewings, hoverflies, and parasitic wasps do most of this work for free, and they only stay if there is something for them to eat. Keep ants off the plant where you can, since they protect aphids from those predators. Water steadily so plants are not stressed, and check any new plant over before you bring it home or move it indoors, since aphids usually arrive on something else.
Aphids are small soft-bodied sap-suckers - green, black, gray, pink, or waxy white, and mostly wingless - that gather in dense colonies on the tenderest new growth: shoot tips, buds, and the undersides of young leaves. They breed extremely fast in mild weather, so a few can become hundreds inside a week. Their feeding curls and distorts soft growth, and the sticky honeydew they excrete coats everything below and turns black with sooty mold. Ants often farm and defend the colonies for that honeydew. A few aphids are normal on almost any plant and a healthy plant shrugs them off; only dense, persistent colonies do real damage, and some aphids also spread plant viruses as they feed.
ClubrootSeverity Medium DiseasenowTatsoi is Brassica rapa and is infected as readily as cabbage or turnip.
The mistake is effectively permanent - spores outlast any rotation a home garden will really run - so check a bed's brassica history before sowing, and rotate successions rather than resowing the same ground all season.
Midday wilting that recovers overnight, yellowing and stunting with no obvious cause, and - the giveaway - swollen, distorted, clubbed roots instead of clean ones when a plant is pulled.
There is no cure once the soil is infested. Pull and destroy affected plants - bag them, do not compost them - lime the bed, and keep brassicas off that ground for years. Rotation and pH are the whole game here.
Rotate at least 4 years out of every brassica, counting the fast salad ones and any brassica cover crop. Lime toward pH 7.0-7.2, since the pathogen dislikes alkaline soil, and improve drainage. Plant only clean seed and transplants, never move infested soil or plants around the garden, and grow resistant or tolerant varieties where the disease is known to be present.
A soil-borne pathogen (Plasmodiophora brassicae) that infects brassica roots and swells them into distorted, clubbed galls. Affected plants stunt and yellow, wilt on warm afternoons and recover overnight, and never size up properly. It is worst in acidic, poorly drained ground, and the resting spores survive in soil for up to 20 years, moving around on soil, tools, boots, water and infected transplants.
Cabbage Worms & LoopersSeverity Medium PestnowCaterpillars and their frass settle into the packed center of the flat rosette, where a spray aimed at the leaves never reaches them - quarter and rinse a whole rosette before cooking.
Baby-leaf beds cut at three weeks usually beat the damage entirely.
Ragged holes in the leaves, dark-green frass in the crown, and green caterpillars that match the leaf and hide along midribs and leaf undersides. White butterflies fluttering low over the bed mean eggs are going down now - look under the leaves for the small pale-yellow eggs, laid one at a time rather than in clusters.
Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki) is the one to reach for first: it affects only caterpillars and is safe around bees, parasitic wasps, and hoverflies. Spinosad also works, but it is not caterpillar-specific - while the spray is still wet it is toxic to bees and to the parasitic wasps that hunt cabbage worms for you. If you use it, spray at dusk so it dries before bees are out, and never wet open flowers, including flowering companions like dill or nasturtium. Follow the label for both. On a small planting, hand-picking and rubbing off eggs is enough on its own.
Floating row cover from sowing or transplant is the near-complete fix - it stops the adults ever laying. Seal it at the soil edges and lift it only to weed or harvest. Otherwise check leaf undersides twice a week, rub off the eggs, and hand-pick the caterpillars. Let dill, cilantro, or other umbels flower nearby to feed the parasitic wasps that do this work for you.
The brassica caterpillar complex: velvety green imported cabbageworms (larvae of the white cabbage butterfly) and inch-worming cabbage loopers (a moth larva). Both chew large ragged holes through the leaves, then work into whatever folds up at the center - head, curd, sprout, or growing crown - fouling it with green pellet droppings. Fast leaf crops are usually cut before the damage matters; slow heading crops suffer most. Nasturtium carries the same mustard-oil chemistry that cues the butterflies to lay, so it hosts them too and is often planted nearby as a decoy.
Cabbage Root MaggotSeverity Low PestnowMostly a spring-sowing problem, and the crop is usually fast enough to outrun it.
The row cover you are already using against flea beetles blocks the egg-laying fly as well, provided the edges are sealed to the soil.
Sudden wilting on the first warm days even though the soil is moist, stunted plants with a bluish cast, and - on pulling a failing plant - brown tunnels and slimy scarring through the roots with small white maggots inside.
There is no rescue once the maggots are inside the roots. Pull and destroy badly infested plants rather than composting them, and reset the bed with row cover and rotation. Beneficial nematodes drenched into the soil help suppress the larvae in a bed you have to keep using.
Cover the crop with floating row fabric from the day you sow or transplant, sealing the edges down to the soil so the fly cannot reach the stems, or fit a cardboard or felt collar disc flat around each stem to block egg-laying. Rotate at least three years away from ground that grew brassicas, and do not plant into fresh manure.
The larvae of a small gray fly that lays its eggs at the soil line against brassica stems. The white maggots hatch and tunnel down into the roots, scarring and rotting them, so plants wilt on warm days, stunt, take on a blue-green cast, and can die outright; root brassicas are tunneled through and spoiled. It is worst in cool, wet spring soil, on transplants and early sowings, and in ground that grew brassicas the year before.
Good & bad neighbors
Plant nearby
-
Umbel flowers feed the parasitic wasps and hoverflies that hunt aphids and cabbage worms.
-
Same cool season, same water, same succession rhythm - the pair share a salad bed and a harvest schedule.
-
Aphid trap crop that draws aphids and their predators toward it and away from the rosettes.
- Traditional pairings, thin evidence
-
Different root zone, same cool-season window - a tidy interplant with no real competition.
-
Allium scent is traditionally credited with masking brassicas from cabbage-worm moths and root-maggot flies.
-
Fast row-mate that doubles as a flea-beetle trap crop, pulling beetles off the leaves you want unblemished.
Keep apart
-
FennelFennel's root exudates inhibit most vegetables, tatsoi included - give it its own corner.
- Traditional pairings, thin evidence
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Tall beans shade out a low ground-hugging green and hold damp air over it; traditional lore also holds beans and brassicas suppress each other.
-
Traditional antagonist that shares some pests and competes for feed; keep in separate beds.
Varieties · 5
You pick one when you add Tatsoi to your garden. Its days to maturity set your harvest window.
Flat rosette (classic tatsoi) 3 varieties
Tatsoi
A flat, symmetrical rosette up to a foot across of dark green spoon-shaped leaves on short white stalks.
flat-rosetteopen-pollinatedcold-hardysaladThe standard open-pollinated tatsoi and what most catalogs simply call Tatsoi: a tight, symmetrical rosette of small dark glossy spoon-shaped blades on crisp white stalks, lying flat on the soil. Mild and sweet raw, exceptionally cold-hardy, and sweeter after every frost. Open-pollinated, so this is the one to grow if you want to save seed.
Tah Tsai
A flat, dark green rosette of glossy spoon-shaped leaves on white stalks.
flat-rosetteopen-pollinatedcold-hardysaladNot a separate cultivar but the same plant under another romanization - tah tsai, tat soi and rosette bok choy all name standard tatsoi. Carried as a distinct catalog name so the packet you bought resolves, and it runs on exactly the same timeline and culture as Tatsoi.
Red Tatsoi
Flat rosette of rounded purple-tinged leaves with green undersides and pale stalks, darkening in cold.
flat-rosetteredornamentalsaladA purple-leaved tatsoi with the same flat rosette habit and mild sweet flavor, its color deepening in cold weather to a near-black purple over green. A few days slower than the green type and grown as much for the salad bowl's appearance as for the plate. Handsome enough to earn a spot in an ornamental winter bed.
Yukina savoy (upright type) 2 varieties
Yukina Savoy
Upright vase of thick, deeply puckered dark-green leaves on stout pale stalks.
uprightsavoyedcooking-greencold-hardyThe upright, savoyed cousin sold alongside tatsoi: a big vase of thick, heavily puckered dark-green leaves on pale stalks, reaching a foot or more tall. Substantially more productive than flat tatsoi and better suited to cooking than to salad, with the same excellent cold tolerance and a mild, sweet flavor. Easier to harvest clean because the leaves never touch the ground.
Koji
Uniform upright plants with dark, puckered leaves on pale-green stalks.
uprightsavoyedhybriduniformA hybrid yukina savoy type bred for uniformity and a faster, tidier upright plant than the open-pollinated Yukina Savoy. Good for baby-leaf cutting early and for full-size cooking greens later, with dark savoyed leaves and reliable cold tolerance. Being a hybrid, seed saved from it will not come true.
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