From My Garden to Yours

When you start getting old like me, even your best efforts will not stave off the inevitable aging processes. The same goes for the plants in our gardens. A lack of energy, failing senses and even fading memories are signs of the passing years for us humans. But wizened experiences, accumulated wealth and the satisfaction of goals achieved balance the negative effects of our aging. We should also take advantage of this net passage of time in our gardens.

As the days get longer (and the nights shorter), the temperatures creep higher, and the crops begin a process called bolting to seed. As a plant attains maturity, this flowering and reproductive process can happen very rapidly. Initially planted to produce food for us, the crops are now matured to the point of reproducing for their own species.

The benefits from this life change may be outright esoteric. Corporate patents on our genetic legacy of plant varieties are already limiting the availability of certain crops. By saving our own seeds, we may become outlaw guerilla gardeners. Collect your own seed by selecting the strongest and last plants that bolt. This may require dedicating garden space while waiting for the seeds to mature long past the edible stage of the crop. After a few generations, homegrown varieties will develop traits compatible to local conditions and growing methods.

A limited harvest is still available from many plants that bolt to seed. Energy previously spent to produce broad tasty leaves, sweet, tender storage tubers, or succulent unopened flower buds (broccoli and cauliflower), is now spent on fibrous stalks, stems and flower petals. Snipping individual but smaller leaves on a towering stem requires much more effort instead of wrenching a broad mess of greens straight from the soil to the cook’s pot.

Lettuce bolts to seed in a matter of days, leaks milky sap and becomes bitter beyond belief. Pulling the plants as they elongate opens space in the garden for the next crop. These spent crops break down quickly in the compost pile or earthworm bin. I feed most bolted crops to our flock of chickens.

Scallion and other allium flowers are edible. Immature flower stems removed in a timely manner encourages new crop growth before too much energy is invested in reproductive servitude. These onion flowers are considered a gourmet treat in many world cuisines. Don’t look at seediness as simply the end of the season; it is merely part of the cycle of life.