What went wrong?

the_cat

Like many of you here, I am a newbie gardener (with an allotment for the first time this year)

I have found lots of help and advice on this forum and am starting to reap the rewards in the form of produce

I fully expected to learn from trial and error but have realised something. ..... I have made an error but can't learn from it as I don't know what to do different next time!:rotfl:

There must be quite a few of us in the same boat and I though maybe a thread where we could share our disasters and learn from the more experienced might help?

So to start it off, this is my problem.

Have been growing brocolli (callabresse) and all was looking good. Noticed a few days ago that tiny flower heads had started to form:T. However about 3 days later they had bolted and were in flower:mad:

What did I do wrong? Any tips for my next attempt?
Thanks

Kay_Peel

You did nothing wrong. Once the soil reaches a certain temperature the Broccoli panicks and puts all its energy into producing flowers and seeds. Broccoli is well known for doing this.

There are a few things that you can do to make it less of a risk:

During hot dry spells, keep the soil temperature down as much as you can by
watering, or
covering the soil around the plants with a mulch, or
growing some ground cover plants underneath the broccoli.

From bitter experience, I know that you just have to be vigilant. I've been watching my calabrese and broccoli like a hawk and I would have picked the main heads this morning but for the drop in temperature and prolonged downpour that we had last night. It's hot today, however, so I'll probably pick and freeze within the next 24 hours, otherwise I risk losing the whole crop.

Lucky I've got some family home this weekend because there's going to be plenty to eat as well as freeze!

This topic is a very good idea - thanks for thinking of it!

the_cat

Thanks for that!
Good to know I was roughly on the right track. Will go back to the lottie later and cover the purple sprouting and the cauliflower with a bit of net-curtain. Hopefully a bit of shade will help stop the rest going the same way. Will also lay some old newspapers around the base of the plants as a mulch

And now next year I will know what to do:T:T:beer:

foxgloves

How frustrating, but try not to worry. My rocket did exactly the same thing before it had hardly got going. From a plant's point of view, its main purpose in life isn't to feed us, it's to flower, set seed & ensure a next generation. As soon as it gets really hot & dry, the plant hastens to set seed to achieve this before it's killed off by drought, so one way you can try & hold back bolting is by trying to keep stuff a little cooler & keeping it well-watered, but once it's decided to go, it'll go & we can't stop it. It happens to everyone at some point, regardless of levels of gardening experience.