My turnips have gone to seed

On return from holiday, I found my turnips had gone to seed (also known as bolting).

This is when a vegetable plant transfers its energies from producing its vegetable to producing flowers and seeds.  It usually happens because the plant is under stress, for example, the conditions are too dry.

Another factor that can cause this to happen is growing vegetables in containers when really they would really like to be grown in much more soil and not restricted to the confines of a container.  With container growing another factor could be that they are not getting quite as much water as they would like.  This is a particular issue for the container grower as they will only get as much water as you or the rain gives them - if they were grown in open ground they could send their roots down further in search of water and nutrients.

My turnips are being grown in a pot (about 10 inches deep).  I don't think they like the confines of the pot as the turnips we are growing at the Bramford Community Garden are golf ball sized and not bolting at all.

They can't have been too stressed last week from lack of water as we had so much rain.  In any case I have beautiful yellow turnip flowers and no turnip roots.  So what do I do with them?  Can I still eat them?

When this occurred, it reminded me of when my radishes flowered last year.

At first I was disappointed as the roots I had grown them for were woody and dry.  Then they grew these beautiful white flowers, which I left as they looked beautiful.  Once they had finished flowering they produced seed pods.  I harvested these and added them to our salads.  We ate them like mange tout and they were wonderful and gave a good crunch to the salad.

Turnips look very much like big, white radishes.  Both turnips and radishes are brassicas, which is what reminded me of my last year's experiences with radishes.  Maybe these are good lessons learnt to bring to my bolted turnips.

Now I am in a quandry.  I feel I must experiment with the culinary delights that these flowers may present.   But do I eat them as flowers  (like broccoli) or do I let them form seeds?

Leaving the garden for a holiday away

I have just returned from a holiday with my boyfriend who is currently working away from home with the UN.  It was a lovely week's holiday but I could never have relaxed and enjoyed myself had I not had my lovely neighbour, Mic do the watering while I was away. 

This is the first holiday I have returned find a garden full of healthy plants.  Usually I spend the holiday checking the UK weather forecast trying to find out how dry it is in the UK and not really focusing on enjoying my holiday.  Before I leave for the airport I put upside down bottles of water contraptions in all the containers and heavily water everything before I go and then return home to find everything desperate for a drink and at least one casualty.

I have to say that Mic has been a star and everything is much bigger and bushier than I left.

My strawberries have not started producing fruit yet but there are plenty of flowers with promises.

Have to admit that my tomatoes have gone beserk!  Which is of course an amazingly good thing.

Really have to get these potatoes out of the bag now I think and find out if there's any goodies at the bottom - this is the first time I'm growing potatoes so it could go either way!

I think I may have some peas ready to eat.  Just need a closer inspection....

Looks like these guys have bolted... probably not suited to container growing as the turnips we've been growing in the Bramford Community Garden were all around golf ball size a fortnight ago.  I will experiment with eating the flowering heads in some salad instead.

Now the Kai Lan has got to be about 3 times the size it was a week ago.  I can see this might be this year's favourite super discovery.  (Last year's was chard).  I think a welcome home salad is in order.

I also found these beautiful radishes - perfectly rounded and ready to eat.  Another veg that has at least trippled in size in my week away.

If you'd like to see what else ended up in the welcome home salad... here's a link to the recipe garden salad