Bolting Lettuce

We have been picking and washing and dressing and eating and giving away our lettuce from the garden for quite some time.

But then it decided to bolt.

Which suggests that it went running out of the garden, away from the suburbs, to try its luck in the big city.

That would be incorrect.

As I am referring to the horticultural definition.

Bolting is the growth of an elongated stalk with flowers grown from within the stem of a plant. This condition occurs in plants that are grown for their leaves, such as lettuce. This behavior (moving from leaf growth to the production of flowers and seeds) is usually undesired. It is, however, a natural and inevitable outcome.

The remaining leaves are bitter so it was time to uproot and discard in the compost bin.

And we wait patiently.

For our newly planted red leaf varietal to take off.

I mean that in the sprouting-sense, not the bolting-sense.