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 14th of April and started to run up to seed about a month ago.
