One of my garden mantras should be; When is doubt, sow asian greens. They seem to always reward with a quick crop and are super handy to have ready to pick.
I had given up on growing them for summer, considering them a cool season crop, but after a neighbour gave me some fresh pak choi at the height of the warm weather, I reconsidered. There was a bed newly free after a sunflower crop, so I decided to try a few rows. The result has been a bed of greens in very short time, and the option to pick a few for dinner any time.
These were seeds that I collected from my Winter crops of pak choi, choi sum, gai lan, etc, and it seems that they are a bit of a mongrel crop with intermediate characteristics. Nevertheless they make a good stir fry! I’ll be thinning these for a couple of weeks yet, and meanwhile will get a few more rows sown as a follow up.
If you want pure stands you would need to grow just one type of brassica green and let a few seed, or sow from bought seed. These brassicas (cabbage relatives) are so diverse (white stems, green stems, broccoli stems, etc) that you don’t need to feel you’re always eating the same vegetable.
When there’s a spare patch, even if it’s still fresh from the last crop, it pays to throw some brassica greens seeds in. You can harvest after a few weeks, they make a cover crop, and you can always dig them in as green manure if a better use for the bed comes up. And they really do grow all year round in the subtropics.