Market Farming

[Alex McGregor <waldenfarm AT sprintmail.com>]

Sad to say, Marcie is right.  Stress or the right stimuli for a plant
causes it to start producing hormones that initiate their flowering/seed
making cycles.  Once these start, they continue to attempt to complete
the cycle.  Our only hope is to prevent the cycle from starting by
eliminating stress from root binding, lack of water; or by manipulating
their environment, such as restricting light.

We can take advantage of these cycles.  Plants will not stop fruiting
until they get a feedback hormone from the maturing seeds.  Once the
seeds start to mature, the plant will stop blooming and put most of its
nutrients into seed production.  This means that we can keep plants
fruiting all season (or until they die) by harvesting fruit before seeds
start to mature.  (True for annuals.)

A Plant Physiologist told us in a lecture about an experiment with a
potato plant that was grown hydroponically and they took the immature
potatoes off the roots, never letting them mature.  He said it produced
potatoes for 3 or so years.  They didn't know how long it would go
because they stopped.  (His explanation was that someone finally took
pity on the poor thing!)

So, Joan, the only thing to do is cut your losses and try again in the
Fall, as someone else suggested.  When something like this happens I say
to myself, "Welcome to the fascinating world of farming!"

Alex McGregor
Walden Farm

Marcie Rosenzweig wrote:

> Hi Joan,
>
> Unfortunately, these guys will keep pushing to flower (bolting) so
> you're going to have to start again in Summer for the Fall.