copied from discussion in facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NorthTexasVegetableGardeners/permalink/10153833143734852/
Natalie Everett
There are some vegetable gardening terms/sayings that I get confused about. I have tried researching for a list of them, but all I get are definitions, not full sayings with their meanings. For example, "going to seed".. things of that nature. Can anyone enlighten this newbie and possibly others who might be struggling with acclimating to this awesome lingo so I can use it, too?
Glenda Blucher Going to seed...plants have one function in their lives...reproduce! When an onion, for example, is mature, it goes to seed. It produces a flowering head that is full of seed. The onion is no longer fit to eat, but has fulfilled its function. Does that help?
Daniel Wood Broccoli that has "gone to seed" usually you would pull the flower buds and eat them before they got this far. I let this one bud, flower, then after the flower is pollinated the flower falls off and the ovary deveops seed.
Del Curlin Going to seed means the plant is spent. Tired and dying. It's given up the ghost and is now about the business of reproduction. Ensuring a next generation.
Daniel Wood the mass majority of veggies we eat are immature by the plants biology
Pat Perkins "Bolted" is really the same thing, but from what I've seen, it happens when the weather gets warm. Once your herbs or lettuces "bolt," and get tall with flowers, they turn bitter.
Natalie Everett So just for my understanding with the "gone to seed" saying, we can grow a plant from a seed, it sprouts and flowers and we can then harvest it before it "goes to seed". Correct? So then, when it does go to seed, it starts growing parts that we can then replant? And can it do this after we harvest what we can eat from it?
JS Fam Bolted is when it goes from productive and thriving one day to almost overnight turning bitter, tough, woody and heading to producing seed. It is more for herbs and lettuces and plants that you use as a tender greens crop. Cabbage plants (kale) produce seed the second year normally. so they have reached the end of the normal life span and gone about putting all energy into producing seeds. Cabbage plants though if you snap the seeding head off they will keep producing some off shoots you can keep using.
Miles Loghry there are several plants that put out good food and when they go to seed the harvest is over... ex. broccoli will grow a head... if the head starts to separate it will soon turn into flowers... in this case, you want to remove heads before they turn to flowers... one could say the plant is "going to seed"... onions grow nicely and sooner or later they will flower and go to seed... i am sure there are some who will correct me... but i know i am close... sometimes my words just do not do me justice... lol
