On 24/05/2014 9:35 AM, Todd wrote:
On 05/23/2014 03:08 PM, David Hare-Scott wrote:
Todd wrote:
Hi All,

My second year Italian Parsley looks really weird.
Others of my customers, that actually know what they
are doing, showed me theirs, and it looks the same:
big stems, small leaves, flowers (if you can call them
that) at the top.

Questions:

1) what parts do you eat, just the small leaves?

2) what do you cut? The stem all the way to the ground?

Many thanks,
-T

It is preparing to die, there is nothing you can do about it, there is
no reason to cut anything other than to eat. Or dig out the whole plant
and make way for something else. All the leaves are still edible. I
tend to use the larger leaves rather than the feathery little ones but
that is just preference. Plant more soon if you want parsley and for an
assured supply in future plant at least yearly.

D

Hi David,

Thank you!

Is that what they call "Bolting"?

No. I'm sure some people would say that your parsley was bolting but
bolting is a term that applies to premature flowering and setting of
seed. Your parsley is doing what a mature parsley plant should be doing.

Bolting can be caused by a number of things but often unseasonable
weather or planting outside normal planting time will bring on bolting.
A common example of bolting would be lettuces where the onset of
sudden unseasonable hot weather will cause then to send up a flower spike.