Your lettuce bolting on you?

 John rang me because he was concerned about his lettuces.                                                                  

“Why are they running up to seed before it makes a heart?” he wanted to know. So we decided to go around and take a look. What a surprise! John has established a great vegie patch on a vacant bit of dirt and had some tricks up his sleeve I hadn’t heard of before. And he was able to share them with me to pass on. All of his vegies were very healthy indeed.

First thing though, we tackled the problem of lettuce running up to seed before setting a heart. Nature does make sure that it more than adequately protects it s species. Because a plant can’t run away from predators or adjust itself to sudden climate changes it does certain things. If a dry spell sets in, or a few hours of intense heat occurs, or any other outside unusual stressful event takes place the plant will almost immediately start setting seed. You may have noticed some species of plants will flower profusely in a drought even though there is not much actual plant or leaf growth. In the case of John’s lettuce we were not able to determine what actual event occurred to force the plant to seed, but it may have just been some unseasonal hot weather for a day or so before rain. They were planted on the 14^th of April and started to run up to seed about a month ago.

Some species are more reactive than others in this way. In this case the lettuce will turn bitter to protect its seed from being grazed (or eaten). Also in the grand scheme of things some vegies and other plants have different alkaloids in the leaf and if one species is grazed constantly it will either poison the eater or turn them off eating that plant for a bit. That is why stock selectively graze different plants when they have a choice. It’s nature’s way of protecting the species from being eliminated.

                                                                                                                                                            

John shared with us his discovery that the colour yellow appears to keep aphids off his broccoli! He had a yellow cord running over the top of the length of the broccoli bed plus some flat pieces of board painted yellow! Also he had a few chilli plants and radishes in pots scattered among the broccoli for the same purpose as well as pots of plain water. This year the aphids that favour broccoli have come on voraciously in some gardens. He asked if it is possible to get more heads from the same plant.  Here is the info I checked out; after you have harvested the main head, you can continue to harvest the side shoots from the broccoli. These will grow like tiny heads to the side of where the main head was. By looking at the size of the florets, you can tell when these side shoots are ready for harvest. Simply cut them off as they become ready.

                                                                                                                                                               

Another interest of John’s is the Dieffenbachia indoor plant which responds well to hot temperatures and dry climates. He propagates them from cuttings. As they are a tropical plant they need to be kept indoors in a shade house situation. He also shared with me his mania for collecting rainwater and how he hates to see it run off anywhere. So hence the rows of buckets, bath tubs, wheelie bins or anything that will hold water is kept full while the rain is about. The gardens are then watered from the saved rainwater.