What I’ve learnt about wombok

Back in the early ’90s when I was a student studying horticulture, my wife and I rented a house in Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point, owned by a lovely Korean family. They lived next door, and shared so much of their culture with us, including their food! Mrs Hong was always dropping over with delights fresh from her kitchen: bulgogi, pajeon, dumplings and, of course, kimchi, the spicy, fermented cabbage pickle that accompanies every Korean meal.

Out in their backyard was a big vegie patch, which we also shared. Mr Hong grew many of the essential ingredients needed for making kimchi, and as a keen student, I spent a lot of time watching and learning. In the warm months he grew chillies and ginger; during the cool seasons, he went into major production of both green onions (scallions) and wombok (Chinese cabbage). 

His soil preparation was simple. All the grass clippings from the property were piled onto vacant beds where they would break down over the moist, subtropical summer into beautiful compost. This soil cover had the added benefit of keeping opportunistic weeds at bay. In autumn, he’d dig it all in, then mound the soil and sow seed at one end of a bed. This spot was purely for the purpose of germinating the seed. As the little seedlings appeared, he transplanted and spaced them across the beds. Other than watering, that’s all Mr Hong did, and he grew the biggest, heaviest wombok you could ever wish for. They loved his light, fluffy, nutrient-rich soil built on years of added compost made from high-nitrogen grass clippings. 

I’ve had my own little love affair with growing wombok ever since. You get plenty of bang for your buck with this vegetable. It’s so versatile in the kitchen: you can use it in soups, slaws, salads and stir-fries. In the patch, wombok takes up less room than a conventional drumhead cabbage and matures much more quickly. There’s a nice little trick I’ve learnt to encourage a Chinese cabbage to form a head even earlier: once the plant gets to a semi-mature size with plenty of leaf, lift up the outer leaves and use some raffia or a strip of soft cloth to loosely tie the leaves together so they are more or less upright. As the new leaves continue to grow from the centre, they will be forced to fold over, which initiates the formation of the cabbage head. 

The nuts and bolts of growing wombok

POSITITON: Full sun
WHAT TO PLANT: Either seeds or seedlings
DEPTH AND SPACING Sow seed 5mm deep, 30–40cm apart 
WHEN TO PLANT In cool to warm conditions when the soil temperature is 10–20°C 
SOIL PREP Add aged manure or compost; add lime or dolomite if pH is less than 6.5 
WATER NEEDS Medium 
FOOD Apply organic pellets every six weeks and liquid fertiliser every two weeks
GROWING TIPS Protect plants with a cover of shadecloth in warmer weather; watch out for snails, slugs and grubs 
WHEN TO PICK Harvest 8–10 weeks after sowing

Header image by iStock

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Chinese cabbage