November 5, 2015

Good morning, recently I talked about harvesting leaves off greens and letting the plants regrow. There are some plants that this works quite well with. The reason for this is that is much easier for a plant to regrow a leaf than a whole new plant. I have also mentioned that plants will grow in less desirable conditions than they will germinate.

Most greens that I have tried this with I have been quite successful. I am having some second thoughts on the boc choy. It does not seem like it is adapted to this harvest technique. With most greens you can delay bolting by the harvesting of leaves. I suspect why this is so because the plant is robbed of nutrients that would be used to force a flower stalk. This practice works for awhile and then the genetics of the plant “trumps” nutrition depletion and the plant completes its life cycle regardless of the conditions. Plants are keyed to reproduce.

What I have noticed with the boc choy is that “it could give a rip” about the depletion thingy. Maybe it has been the hot and cold periods this fall. This also has an affect on plants. This temperature cycling triggers the plant to act like it has gone through the proper seasons. This is very prevalent with onion seedlings. Seedlings larger than 1/4 inch going through the winter will be triggered to bolt once growth starts in the spring. The onion has had all the chilling and has the size requirement to full fill its seed production needs. This makes for a lot of green onions but few bulbs.

Back to the boc choy. I have harvested leaves off of the plants two times and I am seeing the beginnings of flowers. With a lot of plants especially in the mustard family as the flower stalk elongates the leaves get smaller. This is most likely an adaption so that the flowers are much more visible to pollinators or even better exposed to the wind so pollen can be blown to other plants. Maybe my clipping of leaves is trigger enough. I have noticed with mesquite if they are left alone their thorns are some what subdued. Break off a branch or disturb it and the thorns become Godzilla deflectors. Botany and genetics is just an amazing thing.

The variety of boc choy I grow is a dwarf variety, this too could play into this leaf trimming and forcing a flower stalk. It is only one plant in 30 or so that is doing the flower stalk thingy. This could just be this one plants own genetics. This variety is not a hybrid but an open pollinated variety . Could this be part of this gene pool diversity and variation that you get from OP's over hybrids.

Then again I could be over studying this and it is what it is and maybe I just need to get the crop succession down or just limit the time frame that I offer boc choy.

How does the old saying go “distance makes the heart grow fonder”. Ah but it is interesting thoughts, to me that is.

Some mindful thoughts as I work in the garden.

The summer veggies continue to slow. Summer squash and okra are done, butternuts bit it, beans are gone until next year. There still are toms chile's and maybe an eggplant or two. The kohlrabi are starting to bulb nicely (maybe a week or two out) along with the turnips, not sure about the parsnips or the brussel sprouts. They may come through? There may be baby carrots soon. I will have some cut leafs of lettuce in some bags and all the winter greens are coming into their own. It is nice!!