Gardentalk – Bolting vegetables

This bolting and flowering mint in an indoor herb garden needs to go.
This bolting and flowering mint in an indoor herb garden needs to go. (Photo by Matt Miller/KTOO)

Do you have vegetables and herbs that are bolting and flowering because of the long daylight hours? It’s time to harvest them quickly and plant something new in their place.

“They have gotten the signal from Mother Nature that the daylight hours or temperatures, whichever triggers the bolting,” said Master Gardener Ed Buyarski. New side shoots will also bolt.

Buyarski warns that bolting vegetables like lettuce and Swiss chard tend to get stringy or bitter tasting. He recommends harvesting them completely and planting a new crop of radishes, lettuce, mustard greens, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach and peas now.

Listen to the July 7 edition of Gardentalk:

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