Easy Way to Propagate Water Spinach in Zone 5

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Water spinach (空心菜) is cultivated for its tender shoot tips and younger leaves.

Other names of water spinach include: water convolvulus, swamp cabbage (English); kankon, you-sai (Japanese); ong tsoi, weng cai (Cantonese); toongsin tsai (Mandarin); kang kong (Filipino, Malaysian); kang kung, rau muong (Vietnamese); pak bung (Thai); batata acquatica, cancon (Portuguese). It might be illegal to grow water spinach in Southern state because it becomes an established weed in fresh water-ways in tropical climates.

Growing kangkong is fairly easy—give it plenty of sunlight and water (it’s easier to use planter without drainage holes). It can be propagated either by seeds or by cuttings (easier).

Water spinach is extremely sensitive to frost. In zone 5, we normally take cutting outside in June. The image below shows 6-7″ stem cutting taken from the fresh water spinach purchased from Asian grocery store. Take the cutting just below a node. There should be 4-5 nodes. Use a no holes container with an inch of water above the soil. Insert the cutting and wait. it’ll look like this after a week.

Now give it plenty of sunlight and water, then fertilize with high Nitrogen fertilizer every week.

Harvest the tips and young leaves once or twice a week. I always leave more leaves than needed so the plants will grow faster. It won’t hurt the plants if you cut the top off with scissors. I knew it because the deer did it for me a couple of times.