Herbs keep bolting

usignuolo

This spring I planted a small herb bed (oregano, chives, parsley, thyme) in large pots on my sunny patio by the back door. Despite a lot of tlc they have all bolted. Suggestions?

Farway

Unfortunately that is what they do, you can still use the leaves, and, never tried, chive flowers are good in a salad

DaftyDuck

Herbs thrive on cruelty, abandonment and harsh words. Give them "a lot of tlc", as you say you have, and they'll grow fast and taste weak.

Plant them in the kind of soil a builder would leave you after a cheap build. When you didn't pay his bill.... and fed him sugarless weak tea all week. Stick them in and add some grit or gravel for good measure. Chuck a bit on top, if you are feeling kind.

Wave the watering can at them on the hottest of days, and then empty it down the drain instead, laughing maniacally. Never offer them fertiliser. If the show signs of enthusiastic growth, hack them back with a pair of rusty shears. Blunt, rusty shears. Or chop with a spade.

Flowers? Pah, rip them off, rip them away. Leave them out in the hottest sun and, should they wilt, go on leaving them there. That evening, drown the blighters in a bucket for the night, and remove them, spluttering and choking. Stick them right back in their sunny torture site, and cackle Mafiosa-style. If they are in a flower bed, letting the lawnmower slip over their tiny growth a little is quite amusing too... Standing on them, having a dance, that can be fun with the ground-dwellers.

They'll love it. They are suckers for punishment. Sado-masochist plants with warped personalities. Evil, bad-tempered little plants - bad-tempered because they've got a complex about their size... just like Napoleon had, only the herbs are more viscious. The more you hit, bully and kick them, the stouter, more flavoursome they become. Think where many of them grow: some hot, sunny, waterless, soil-less crevice on a south-facing promontory of a desolate Mediterranean hillside. Hot? Dry? Windy? You wouldn't believe what they cope with.

I've yet to turn my weed-burning torch on the thymes, but that's my next gameplan. That and parking my car on the herb garden.

mfmaybe

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Herbs thrive on cruelty, abandonment and harsh words. Give them "a lot of tlc", as you say you have, and they'll grow fast and taste weak.

Plant them in the kind of soil a builder would leave you after a cheap build. When you didn't pay his bill.... and fed him sugarless weak tea all week. Stick them in and add some grit or gravel for good measure. Chuck a bit on top, if you are feeling kind.

Wave the watering can at them on the hottest of days, and then empty it down the drain instead, laughing maniacally. Never offer them fertiliser. If the show signs of enthusiastic growth, hack them back with a pair of rusty shears. Blunt, rusty shears. Or chop with a spade.

Flowers? Pah, rip them off, rip them away. Leave them out in the hottest sun and, should they wilt, go on leaving them there. That evening, drown the blighters in a bucket for the night, and remove them, spluttering and choking. Stick them right back in their sunny torture site, and cackle Mafiosa-style. If they are in a flower bed, letting the lawnmower slip over their tiny growth a little is quite amusing too... Standing on them, having a dance, that can be fun with the ground-dwellers.

They'll love it. They are suckers for punishment. Sado-masochist plants with warped personalities. Evil, bad-tempered little plants - bad-tempered because they've got a complex about their size... just like Napoleon had, only the herbs are more viscious. The more you hit, bully and kick them, the stouter, more flavoursome they become. Think where many of them grow: some hot, sunny, waterless, soil-less crevice on a south-facing promontory of a desolate Mediterranean hillside. Hot? Dry? Windy? You wouldn't believe what they cope with.

I've yet to turn my weed-burning torch on the thymes, but that's my next gameplan. That and parking my car on the herb garden.

Very funny indeed :rotfl:

Though I'm not convinced this explains my pathetic rosemary, but perhaps all the rain over winter and spring convinced it that I was trying to care for it?