Winter Salads Bolting.

[Stringfellow]

Hi Charles. I have grown winter salads for the past three winters and enjoyed many harvests 🙂 Each year I have grown a range of plants including many that you recommend. I have found that Chinese cabbage and pak choi (both grown for leaf) always try to flower long before any other (mustards, kale, lettuce, spinach, coriander etc.) Is this a fairly normal observation and, if so, what is the reason or this? I’m wondering if a better varietal choice would assist (or resist flowering!) or perhaps a more regular watering routine – any recommendations here?

I hope your first sowings are germinating well and are the start of some lovely harvests to come.

[charles]

Yes its their habit, I find the same, tatsoi too. However my tatsoi has been growing more new leaves in February than many other plants.
For this reason, and slug damage, I grow less of them than lettuce, spinach, mustards which crop for longer.

[Stringfellow]

Thanks Charles, I’ll grow more lettuce and spinach in future. It’s a shame really because we both like the crunch and juiceness of the pak choi and Chinese cabbage stems.

[charles]

You can plant peas for shoots after pulling them out, but they don’t crop (even from January sowing and February planting) until April and may be in the way of plantings for summer.

[Stringfellow]

Thanks Charles, I may give that a go; I have some pea shoots on the way for a different bed, but enough to plant in the green house where the flowering salads are at present.

[Author]

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