Spring Cabbages have Bolted!
April 18, 2009
Cabbages Plot 15.04.09
Just when you think everything is going swimmingly and you’ve been waiting all winter for some tasty spring cabbage leaves, this happens!
Bolting
Bolting is where the plant puts on a sudden spurt of growth too quickly and uses up all its energy, then flowers and seeds. It will stop growing as it has completed its life cycle.
Why does bolting occur?
Flowering plants like cabbage, lettuce or spinach have a photoreceptor protein which is sensitive to seasonal changes or hours of darkness. These long day plants require fewer number of hours darkness within a day to set flower. A cold spell of weather can also assist with bolting.
Bolted Cabbage 18.04.09
According to the RHS, they recommend to sow your spring cabbages at the end of July to prevent your cabbages from bolting early (they will bolt later instead) or sow a bolt resistant variety like Hispi F1, Advantage F1 or Pixie.
I have picked off the leaves of the cabbage plants for the kitchen and thrown the rest of the plant in the compost bin.
One of my plots will be empty for a while until the next lot of cabbages (Minicole F1) grow, so I will be sowing a ‘catch crop’ (a fast growing crop grown in between other slower growing crops) of radishes, small chanteny carrots and leaf beat, so the area doesn’t go to waste.
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allotmonaut | April 19, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Gibberelic acid causes bolting. Amazing the useless stuff that sticks on your mind from ‘o’ level biology 30 years ago.
Although I suspect you are more interested in what causes the gibberelic acid to cause the bolting…soil too loose, I am told by the sages of our allotments. After digging you may have to tamp your soil down or bolting may ensue.