| salad rocket flowers |
| mustard seed pods |
It is incredible that only after about 50 days, my plants are bolting and already having seedpods. That is about 7 or 8 weeks. I can almost not fathom how quickly they have grown, how big they have grown, in such a small amount of time.
I have harvested every single day for about three or four weeks now. And I am wondering how long this heavenly situation will last.
Having abundance as a gardener is a dream, one I think many people will want. But as I wrote a couple of times now, the times in between these heavenly abundance periods are always strange to me. It is a strange period in which you pray or hope that everything will go according to plan. When you sow, you just hope that the seeds will germinate and pop their heads through the ground. When they are growing, you just hope that they mature into plants you can harvest. And then when they bolt, you just hope that the process completes without problems, like worms or fungus or anything in these lines.
I am now at this last stage, I see how many of the plants are bolting and I am already thinking about the potential seed harvests, abundance for many other growing seasons, but now I will check the garden every day to see if the flowers are attracting insects and if they are okay.
| mustard seed pods |
It all started with this random unplanned mustard seed plant that somehow got planted with my salad rocket. It bolted only after a couple of weeks and I saw the beautiful yellow flowers. I also saw some nasty aphids growing on them so I needed to pick the last couple of leaves, hence the few seed pods. But now these seed pods are getting ready to produce new plants. It is always amazing to see how even just one seed can produce so much potential for new growth.
| wild rocket flowers |
Then in second place, I began seeing the yellow flowers of the wild rocket plants. Very similar to the mustard, because wild rocket is actually part of the mustard family, showed their faces. These seeds, however, are sometimes a problem. They are much smaller than mustard and rocket seeds, and they produce far more seeds than the last two mentioned. They really become a problem if you do not control their growth.
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Thirdly, I began seeing the salad rocket bolting. The white flowers greeted me this morning when I walked to the garden, my usual garden meanderings. I am excited to see how many of these plants will bolt in the coming week and how many flowers there will be. But at the same time, I am sad about the fact that they will stop producing these lovely leaves.
| amaranth bolting/flowering |
Strangely enough, with the tremendous success and growth of the rocket leaves, I am disappointed with the amaranth plants. Maybe I planted them too close to each other, a mistake I never seem to learn from. But they did not grow that big. They also bolted really quickly. Normally, they take about a whole growing season. Here, they also just took 50 or so days.
| spider friend |
Whilst taking photographs of the bolting and flowering plants, I saw this little friend! It reminded me anew why I garden. Mostly to feed myself, but also to give back to nature. Growing food also means creating new life. It is amazing to see this happen in front of your eyes.
| salad rocket leaves |
I cannot believe the plants have grown so quickly and so healthy. It is amazing to think about it, 50 days and they are already going to seed. In less than a 100 days, I might have seeds that I can plant again. Life is tremendously cyclical, a beautiful cycle.
In any case, I hope that your garden is flourishing.
Stay well.
All of the writings and musings are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.