Scarlet Red Tatsoi is a striking Asian green that rewrites what you expect from a humble salad leaf. Its plum-colored foliage contrasts beautifully with bright green stems and pale undersides, creating a plant that's as gorgeous on the plate as it is in the garden. Maturing in just 50 days, this frost-tolerant cultivar thrives in zones 4 through 9 and reaches a compact 12 inches tall with a 16-inch spread, making it naturally suited to containers, successive plantings, and cut-and-come-again harvests. The dark coloration may offer added protection against flea beetles, a common brassica pest, while the delicious, tender leaves deliver the mild mustard character tatsoi is known for.
Full Sun
Moderate
4-9
12in H x 16in W
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High
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The dark plum-colored leaves set Scarlet Red apart from the pale green tatsois you'll typically find, and this isn't just cosmetic; the deeper pigmentation may help defend against one of the brassica's most persistent pests. It shines equally as a baby salad green harvested young or as a semi-heading rosette grown to full maturity, giving you flexibility in how you garden. The 50-day timeline means you can sow successive crops through spring and fall, building layers of harvests across the season.
Scarlet Red Tatsoi shines in the kitchen as a fresh salad green, particularly when harvested young for tender, mild leaves perfect for mixing into composed salads or eating as a delicate raw side. It also performs beautifully as a cooked green; the tender foliage wilts gently and maintains its subtle mustard flavor when sautéed lightly or added to soups and stir-fries near the end of cooking. The semi-heading rosette form makes it elegant enough for plating as a finished vegetable, and its compact size means you can grow enough for regular kitchen use in remarkably small spaces.
No timeline data available yet for this variety.
Start seeds indoors 8 to 10 weeks before your last spring frost, sowing into seed-starting mix kept at 55 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Transplant seedlings outdoors after hardening off, spacing them 6 inches apart in rows 18 inches wide.
Direct sow seeds beginning 3 to 4 weeks before your last spring frost. You can continue succession sowing throughout the growing season for continuous harvests.
Begin harvesting individual outer leaves once the plant is established, typically around 50 days from sowing for a full semi-heading rosette. For a cut-and-come-again approach, harvest leaves from the outside in when they reach a usable size, leaving the center intact to continue producing. Pinch or cut just above the soil line to remove entire rosettes for a single harvest. The plum-colored foliage will darken slightly as the plant matures, signaling peak flavor and tenderness.
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