What Can You Do With Bolting Greens?

Seeds forming on bolted lettuce. Instead of pulling out your bolting lettuce or other leafy greens, allow them to flower and form seeds. The flowers attract pollinators and you can collect the seeds and save them for next year’s crop.

How is bolting useful?

Also called “running to seed” or “going to seed,” bolting redistributes a plant’s energy away from the leaves and roots to instead produce seeds and a flowering stem. Bolting usually signals the end of new leaf growth.

Can you eat collard greens after they bolt?

A: Bolting (producing flowers rather than more leaves) is usually caused by fluctuations in air temperature when a collard plant is small to medium-sized. After bolting begins, the plant will not grow larger. The leaves will not taste good. Harvest and eat your collards now.

What to do with spinach that is bolting?

What to Do When Your Spinach Plant Bolts

1. Leave the spinach plant in the garden and let it go completely to seed.
2. Pull your spinach from the garden and replace it with something that will grow more optimally in your current garden conditions.

Can you eat spinach after bolting?

Once spinach sends up flower stalks, its leaves become tasteless or bitter, making it inedible.

Can you eat bolted kale?

Even after the leaves have turned bitter, the flowers the plant produces are pretty tasty, and can be eaten like you would broccoli florets. If you end up with more leaves than you can use in one meal, toss them into a plastic bag and store them in the dehumidifier drawer of your refrigerator.

Why is plant bolting bad?

One of the biggest nuisances in the summer vegetable garden is bolting – when crops put on a vertical growth spurt to flower and set seed before the vegetables are ready for harvest. The result is inedible, bitter-tasting leaves or poor-quality produce with little that can be salvaged.

Do collard greens grow back after winter?

Collards are a biennial that typically overwinter in USDA Hardiness Zones 8-10, though in a mild year they may even survive in colder zones unassisted. I once grew collard greens in my Zone 6 garden that survived through the winter without protection and resumed growth the next year!

Can you eat bolted lettuce?

When plants flower, it’s generally considered a good thing; however, in vegetables grown for their leaves, such as lettuce, spinach, cabbage, and other cole crops, bolting causes the flavor to turn bitter and the leaves to get smaller and tougher, making them inedible.

Should I let my spinach go to seed?

In fact, spinach prefers the cooler season and will respond to heat by forming flowers and seeds. This tends to make the leaves quite bitter. The bitter flavor resulting from spinach bolting early is enough to keep you out of that vegetable patch.

How do you trim spinach so it keeps growing?

Pinch, cut, or snip off the stem of the leaf close to the base of the plant, but just above the top of the soil level. You don’t need to leave more than 1/2″ of stem above the soil’s surface to allow for regrowth.

Is bolted lettuce toxic?

Can You Eat Bolted Lettuce? Yes, you can eat bolted lettuce but you probably won’t want to. Once lettuce begins to bolt it starts producing compounds called sesquiterpene lactones.

Can chickens eat bolted spinach?

Some safe garden fodder choices for what to feed chickens that are locked up in their chicken run would be: sunflower plant heads and leaves; bolted lettuces, spinach and arugula; the tops of radish, beet, turnip or other greens; or most herbs (e.g. oregano, bee balm, lovage, etc.), though not all herbs are safe.

Is bolted lettuce healthy?

It is safe to eat lettuce during the bolting phase. The leaves of lettuce will taste less bitter earlier in the bolting process and more bitter towards the end. Leaves will become rough, dull, and yellow throughout the bolting process.

What can I do with overgrown kale?

If kale gets too tall, you need to chop its head at about 4-5 inches from the soil. Alternatively, you can harvest the entire plant – cut 2 inches above the ground. The new leaves will grow in 1 to 2 weeks. It is important that the stalk stays in a good condition.

What to do with kale that has gone to seed?

When the pods are fully dry, they can be placed in a brown paper bag. Close the bag and shake it vigorously. This should release any mature seeds from the pods. After the seeds have been collected and removed from the plant matter, store the seeds in a cool and dry place until ready to plant in the garden.

How do you stop bolting?

How can bolting be prevented?

1. Plant in the right season.
2. Avoid stress.
3. Use row cover or plant in the shade of other plants to keep greens and lettuce cool as the season warms.
4. Cover young broccoli or cauliflower plants and near-mature bulbing onions during a cold snap to protect them from bolting.

What to do with parsley that has bolted?

If your parsley plant is bolting, it will likely have not much left in it. Probably the best idea is to pull it up and replant.

How do I stop my lettuce from bolting?

Give your lettuce a break from full sun. Grow pots of lettuce on a porch or patio that gets some shade, plant it in the garden under taller plants, like corn, or use a shade cloth over your lettuce bed. Regular watering can also help delay bolting.

Can you eat collard seed pods?

After a few weeks of the plants flowering, I was pleasantly surprised with a massive amount of tender seed pods. I would say in general you can cook these like you would any string bean. In today’s recipe, I went ahead and steamed the collard beans, then sprinkled on a bit of salt and pepper.

Why are my collard greens seeding?

Like lettuce, collards thrive in cool weather and will bolt, or produce seeds, when temperatures heat up. The plant will overwinter and then reappear to flower and produce seeds in the spring. After it flowers, you’ll notice pods that resemble green beans.