Um, I don’t think my Pak Choi is meant to have flowers on it yet. Oops. It looks very pretty though, I must say. I rather like it. But these are not exactly the nice big leaves I was hoping to add to a stir fry in a few weeks time. I guess that’s off the menu.
So, what happened? Well, it got hot and bolted.
When a plant bolts, it basically stops producing leaves and starts concentrating on producing flowers and seeds instead. This happens when the ground temperature rises. Broccoli, cabbages, lettuces and some herbs like coriander and basil are quite prone to this, thus my Pak Choi (a Chinese cabbage) getting a little carried away.
The way to prevent this happening, if you’re worried that you might have a few runaway plants on your hands in this warm weather, is to water regularly and add a mulch to keep the ground temperature more consistent. Next year, I am going to do a serious amount of mulching, it seems to be the key to a lot of problems!!