flowering salads after warm winter

[ashleigh]

hello,

my salad rocket, pak choi and some lettuces have been flowering since late jan! they will be over before we start selling salad bags again first week of march! i’m very put out.

is this bolting a problem for anyone else after the warm winter? that’s what i was putting it down to, but as no one else is talking about this problem i wondered if i have stressed the plants in some other way.

in spring 2015 my salads were timed perfectly and were abundant march-may. so i’m dismayed to have messed it up this year.

[charles]

Hi Ashleigh, this does not sound right, when did you sow them? And which varieties of lettuce?
In my September sown salads I am seeing no flowering, very few stems even.

[Stringfellow]

Hello. I have experienced issues with pak choi bolting early over the past couple of seasons and wondered if there is a particular variety that resists bolting better than others? We enjoy the leaf in salads but I’m beginning to wonder if I should go with a few more spinach and lettuce plants instead! Sown in September, grown undercover in composted soil, watered every couple of weeks.

[charles]

Yes the oi’s are early risers, tatsoi even more so, by early March with me. Of pak chois. Joi Soi can go into April, just! They do leaf early as well.

[Stringfellow]

Thanks, I’ll look out for that variety nearer summers end. Hope you have more success next year Ashleigh.

As an aside, fingers crossed for the home saved onion seed; will be interesting to follow their progress.

[ashleigh]

it wasn’t as bad as i feared in the end. the lettuces weren’t bolting, they were just rising up a bit more than usual, i panicked and thought they were on their way to flower!

the pak choi, mizuna and salad rocket is finishing now, which is earlier than last year (late spring both years and we’re high in the cold pennines) – i think i stressed it with too little water at planting time and in feb.

it’s useful to know that it’s not the warm winter that caused it after all.

i find franchi pak choi very good. i might give joi choi a try then.

spinach ‘gigantic’ has been excellent, i’ll never go back to regular size spinach !

[Author]

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