I've got a heap of silver beat, planted six months ago, that's gone to seed.
Lower levels are okay. Should I just cut it back to half way and let it
sprout again?

"Keith Rhodes" wrote in message
...
I've got a heap of silver beat, planted six months ago, that's gone to
seed. Lower levels are okay. Should I just cut it back to half way and let
it sprout again?


You can do this but it won't stop them continuing to produce seed stalks.
You could just keep cutting the new leaves about the seed stalk until they
become too unproductive and then pull them out and start again.

David

"Keith Rhodes" wrote in message
...
I've got a heap of silver beat, planted six months ago, that's gone to
seed. Lower levels are okay. Should I just cut it back to half way and let
it sprout again?

no, just plant some more as it grows so fast anyway, & now is a good time.
it just sounds like yours is too far gone to bother with now. once it gets
flowering the leaves diminish in quantity & quality & don't taste as good
anyway, and it may very well just want to resume flowering.

sometimes (not very often ime), you can stop leafy plants from flowering,
but you need to nip out the flower heads early, i.e. immediately they
appear. with something like silverbeet it's just not worth the trouble
though ime, so just plant more.
kylie

On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:18:24 GMT, "0tterbot" wrote:

"Keith Rhodes" wrote in message
...
I've got a heap of silver beat, planted six months ago, that's gone to
seed. Lower levels are okay. Should I just cut it back to half way and let
it sprout again?

no, just plant some more as it grows so fast anyway, & now is a good time.
it just sounds like yours is too far gone to bother with now. once it gets
flowering the leaves diminish in quantity & quality & don't taste as good
anyway, and it may very well just want to resume flowering.

sometimes (not very often ime), you can stop leafy plants from flowering,
but you need to nip out the flower heads early, i.e. immediately they
appear. with something like silverbeet it's just not worth the trouble
though ime, so just plant more.
kylie

By cutting off the seed heads when they appeared, I kept a quantity of
plants producing well fro about 4 years.....

On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 12:51:11 +1100, Keith Rhodes wrote:

I've got a heap of silver beat, planted six months ago, that's gone to
seed. Lower levels are okay. Should I just cut it back to half way and let
it sprout again?

Ours did the same, one moment we were looking forward to a good crop and
the next day it was all going to seed head.

You can cut them back if you want to, but once they are in that stage they
stay that way.

We just tend to remove all the larger leaves and crop the smaller
leaves continuously as a crop when this happens. Perhaps not the most
productive, but it does give you a continuous feed (if you have enough
plants).