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There goes the cilantro

Posted on June 24th, 2008 – 9:33 AM
By Jaime Chismar

How do I know it’s summer? My cilantro flowers. My spinach wilts. And my lettuces become unbearably bitter. Our cool, rainy spring brought salads a-plenty, but now it’s time to say buh-bye to my spring veggies — And hello to the splendors or summer.

Tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, my seedlings are now established plants ready for production. My potatoes are a foot tall and my brussel sprouts are leafy and full. Whoohoo!

Now all I need is a little patience. Sometimes, waiting is the hardest part of gardening. Luckily, there are plenty of weeds to keep me busy.

What’s coming up in your garden? When do you expect your first tomato? How long will it take for my brussel sprouts to grow their stalks?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 9:33 am and is filed under Tomatoes, Peppers + Eggplant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

12 Responses to "There goes the cilantro"

sparklegirl says:

June 24th, 2008 at 9:40 am

My cilantro flowered just yesterday. :(

Ben says:

June 24th, 2008 at 9:47 am

I guess I am a n00b. My wife and I have a cilantro plant that has flowered. Plus, our garden lettuce tastes terribly bitter. Does this mean that those plants are done for the season? Do I need to pull them? What is the point of planting these items if they are only good for a short part of the season?

duma17 says:

June 24th, 2008 at 9:51 am

My tomatoes have started to develop.

Jennifer Twin Mom says:

June 24th, 2008 at 10:01 am

I think I planted my lettuce rather late because I just harvested my first batch last night. I thought it was really good. Maybe a little bitter, but I bought one of those mesclun mixes that has a lot of bitterness.

If your lettuce gets a little bit of nice afternoon shade, you can keep harvesting/eating it all summer right? Did I just completely invent that fact for my own convenience?

JDW says:

June 24th, 2008 at 10:05 am

my romaine lettuce is wonderful right now. 2 tomatoes appeared this weekend on one plant.
However, i am having a terrible problem with Aphids (spelling?) on my mini-sweet& my Bell peppers. But they don,t touch my chili peppers.

Jaime Chismar says:

June 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am

Ben,

When greens go bitter or when cilantro flowers, it’s called “bolt”. Bolt happens when the weather gets hot. It sends a signal to the plant to stop producing leaves and start producing seeds.

Like people, some veggies thrive hot weather and some wilt.

I’ve had really good luck planting lettuce in early April for spring salads and late August for fall salads. Our Minnesota summers are just too hot to grow lettuce all season long.

Amy says:

June 24th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

My veggie garden has been very disappointing so far this year. My lettuce is just starting to finally grow.I planted it in early May, I can’t believe you are all harvesting already. The way it’s going, it looks like I won’t be harvesting for at least another month! :-( My peppers, basil and eggplant are still looking like seedlings. The zuch, squash and cucks are looking really sad too. But the tomatoes look good, my early girl already has a few tomatoes that are starting to turn red! I had such an awesome veggie garden last year…looks like I’m going to be very disappointed this year!! :-( Is it because we had such a cold Spring?

Jaime Chismar says:

June 24th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

Wow Amy — You have tiny tomatoes already? Good for you! You must be doing something right. I have just the beginnings of flower buds.

Basil is a wimpy herb. It needs a few 80 degree days before it looks like… well.. basil.

Jaime Chismar says:

June 24th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

JDW — Aphids are seriously ga-ross. A quick blast with the hose works well. Otherwise, there are some very mild soaps that work wonders. I had some problems last year and got some great advice from GG reader PeterHoh.

Connie Nelson says:

June 24th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

Amy,
Lots of warm-weather plants are lagging because of our relatively cold spring. Some folks are reporting that their tomatoes, peppers, eggplants etc. are way, way behind. Keep your hopes up! As the weather warms they should perk up. Also, you may want to feed them with a good water-soluable fertilizer. (I like fish emulsion.)

Mary Schier says:

June 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

My lettuce still tastes good, though it gets a bit of afternoon shade. Spinach bolted two weeks ago. Some green tomatoes are on the plants, and I’m harvesting a few strawberries. Unfortunately, the bunnies are getting plenty as well.

Amy F says:

June 24th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

My spinach was 6″ tall then this week grew a foot and bolted. I never even thought to harvest it.

My lettuce on the other hand, is fabulous. I started the first from seed in mid-March and planted new ones every 2-3 weeks. The cold weather slowed the early harvesting, but I now have 50+ leaf lettuce plants all producing and nothing’s bolting (I got mostly bolt-resistant varieties and don’t get full sun).

My first tomato is marble-sized. That one was purchased from the Friends School Sale. All the ones I started from seed in mid-March are about 15″ and not flowering yet.

My snap peas just started producing this week. My pole beans shot up runners yesterday.

I pulled the last of the radishes last week. They did okay, half were tiny and half were good sized.

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