Perhaps you people can help. Last couple of years, I plant, say, a 6-pack of lettuce or chard, and they right away bolt to seed and don't produce much in the way of leaf. Is it heat/light, water, or soil? I'm in Portland, OR.
A few years ago I had a good crop of Chard, and it even over-wintered - I had greens all year long. Now it seems all I can get is seed from plants in the same location.
Chard is a biennial and produces seed in the second year.
phorbin wrote in news:MPG.2e45d1849befc191989bfa@127.0.0.1:
That's what I thought - yet starts planted this year have bolted already. I'm not getting any leafy growth to speak of.
How's the heat index where you live? Both chard and lettuce tend to bolt down here in Houston area unless in shade. The chard in the back garden bolted and we finally pulled the plants as the stems were about three inches in diameter. The chard in front only gets sun from about 0800 to
1200 and is still producing heavily. Both were planted last August. Both plants also require a good bit of water to sustain growth.George Shirley wrote in news:53dc11fc$0$30930$ snipped-for-privacy@blocknews.net:
Portland weather tends to be relatively mild
This has been going on for some while - bolting when temps were in the
70's.Sounds like I need to try more shade.
have you done anything to the soil in that location? planting the same thing year after year doesn't tend to work well for certain crops. i suspect leafy greens would be one of them.
songbird
songbird wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ID-306963.user.uni-berlin.de:
As I recall, I added store-bought compost.
I'm having the problem, however, in spots where I didn't plant these veggies before. I do note, that I do have a few spots where they seem to be doing better than other places. I've got two tomatoes planted where I had tomatoes last year - one is anemic but producing well, and the other is going wild with huge fruit.
I'm mostly using raised beds. This is a city lot so I have limited room for rotation.
I also have problems with radishes - from the get-go -- they bolt instead of producing anything resembling an edible root.
Is there any reason to suspect that the compost itself is the issue?
Just wait and eat the seed pods (they look like little green pea pods). They taste virtually the same and you end up with far more food per plant.
Sometimes this will happen if the plants were exposed to weather cool enough to fool them into 'thinking' that they had gone through the winter (vernalization) or conditions that are harsh enough in some way so that the plant must 'go for broke' and rush into bloom.
We've had this happen.
Did you notice if the seedlings were rootbound? Next year, check that. If they're rootbound, tear and loosen the rootball quite a lot when you transplant.
I haven't had this problem with lettuces but bolting did in our first planting of broccoli this year. I think I overlooked the rootbound thing.
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