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Beetroot and radishes
Nathalie2
Posts: 6
in Fruit & veg
Hi,
I want to try and avoid a problem that I had in my garden last year and I hope you can help.
I planted radishes and beetroot (the boltardy variety) and both bolted and never resulted in any vegetables. I am not sure what I did wrong, is it because the seeds were a bit old, did I not water enough, not enough sun, too much water, sewn too early? can anyone help as I really would like to make sure I get both these veg growing in my garden this year.
Many thanks in advance.
Nathalie
0
Posts
Interesting Nathalie2; I grew them quite a few years ago in the garden. Planted about April time but protected them from the frosts with fleece cloches. I think I may have been lucky they didn't bolt as I didn't know what I was doing at the time. (Still don't) but I'm about to plant some at my newly acquired allotment. I've not put any manure in this part of the ground I'm just going to dress it with bone meal and chicken manure pellets. Any other advise would be interesting for me too.
Thanks Rodgy-dodge. I applied chicken manure pellets to my veg patch this year and will be putting down some bone meal soon. I had planted the radishes in the last week of march last year, it was very mild. I don't have any cloches or fleece at home so did not protect them that way, would that make a big difference?
I wasn't expecting the beetroot to bolt, as the variety was suppose to protect it from that.
Beetroot needs fertile soil that doesn't dry out. They are prone to bolting if they get stressed by a cold snap or thirst. Here's what the RHS says about growing them - https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/grow-your-own/vegetables/beetroot
not sure how this quote button works!
I just made a simple cloche by using canes with a bit of hosepipe bent over and pegging the fleece down. I live near the north east coast so it can get rather chilly here. I wouldn't have expected it to bolt either if that's what it implied on the packet!
Cheers for the link obelixx
I bought some beetroot seeds yesterday "Bolthardy" I'll let you know how mine fair
Thanks for your replies. Interesting 1Runnybeak1, I did have runner beans growing next to them, I had not realised that they did not like each other!
Generally speaking bolting seems to be a reaction to dry conditions - the plant figures the growing season is coming to an end and it is going to wither and die soon so it puts all it's energy into trying to produce seed instead of the leaves or roots that we are after. So probably not enough water.