"Niki" wrote in message ...
Hi there,
I have been having problems with most of my vegetables flowering even
before they reach a mature stage. Was wondering if that is due to the fact
that the weather has been so hot lately and the extended period of no
rain.

it might be - i had a number of bolters after some recent dry, incredibly
windy weather & i'm pretty sure the weather was to blame. :-)


Therefore, I decided to install a shadehouse to protect the plants.

a) Does anyone have any ideas on why the plants are all bolting?

the above, but also they will bolt just from dryness afaik, so you do need
to water them.

it will also happen if you planted at the "wrong" time, so if you think it's
just that you got some things in too late this time & then they thought it
was summer come early, i'm sure they'd all be bolting joyfully ;-) and you
will know better for next time.

b) Do you think the shade house will solve the problem?
c) How would you go about a home-made shadehouse?
d) What is the best material cover to use for the shade, what colour and
why?

TIA

i'm unsure about the shade house - were you going to have a moveable one to
pop over the beds? i'm thinking that it would probably help during peculiar
weather, but that's a guess. i don't know much about them. for veg, i assume
you would want shade cloth that's not too heavy - the plants would need some
light. perhaps 30% - 50% shadecloth.
kylie