Gadenin日本語Get the appPinch the leader early, and mean it
Left alone, a garland chrysanthemum plant grows straight up as one stem, gets hard and stringy at the base, and puts up flower buds at the top. Pinch the growing tip out when the plant is about five inches (13 cm) tall and it branches instead, throwing out three or four side shoots from the leaf joints below the cut. Those side shoots are the crop.
This one action is worth more than any amount of feeding. A pinched plant carries several soft growing points instead of one, and every point you pick later branches again. An unpinched plant gives you a handful of leaves and then buds. If you have only ever grown this as a cut-and-come-again patch of baby leaf, growing a few plants on and pinching them is a different crop entirely.
Do the first pinch as soon as the plant has four or five true leaves and a clearly extending tip. Take off the top inch and a half (4 cm), just above a pair of leaves. Eat it. Pinch again on each side shoot once it reaches six inches, and the plant becomes a low bush that you can pick from for weeks.
Water steadily, because the flavor follows the water
The aroma of this plant is strong to begin with, and drought concentrates it into something genuinely harsh. A plant that has been checked by dry soil produces small, thick, dark leaves with a bitter edge and a resinous smell that overwhelms whatever you cook it with. The same variety grown with steady moisture gives soft, wide leaves with a fragrant, herbal flavor that is pleasant rather than aggressive.
Aim to keep the top two inches (5 cm) of soil consistently damp without ever having it waterlogged. In cool autumn weather that may mean watering once or twice a week; in a warm spring spell, on light soil, it can mean every second day. Push a finger in rather than watching the surface, which dries misleadingly fast.
Mulch pays for itself here. An inch (2.5 cm) of compost or fine bark along the row evens out the swings, keeps the soil cool, and delays the point at which lengthening days and warming soil push the plants into bud. Keep the mulch a finger's width clear of the stems so the crowns do not stay wet.
Never let a plant wilt hard and then flood it. The sudden swing splits stems and triggers bud formation faster than steady dryness does. If you find a row wilted, water moderately and again a few hours later rather than soaking it once.
Feed lightly, and stop when buds appear
This is a fast leaf crop with a shallow, fibrous root system, so it responds well to modest and frequent feeding and badly to a single heavy dose. Too much nitrogen gives soft, pale, floppy growth that aphids find first and that carries very little of the aroma people grow this plant for.
| Stage | What to give | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Before sowing | One to two inches (3 to 5 cm) of compost worked into the top layer | Once per crop |
| From the second thinning | Balanced liquid feed at half the label strength | Every two weeks |
| After each cut | The same half-strength feed, watered in the same day | Once per cut |
| Once flower buds show | Nothing further | Stop feeding |
Keep the base of the plant open
As a plant branches, the oldest leaves at the bottom yellow and lie against the soil. Left there, they hold moisture around the crown and give aphids and slugs somewhere to sit out the day. Ten seconds of tidying every time you pick is enough to prevent nearly all of it.
- Strip the yellowing lower leaves Pull them downwards so they come away cleanly at the stem. Anything touching the soil should come off, whether or not it has yellowed yet.
- Look into the crown Turn a couple of leaves over and check where the shoots meet the main stem. Aphids colonise that junction first and are invisible from above until the population is large.
- Clear the ground beneath Take away the stripped leaves and any weeds rather than leaving them on the mulch. A clear, airy few inches under each plant is the cheapest disease control there is.
What to write down
Note the date of the first pinch and the date each plant first produced usable side shoots; the gap between the two is usually ten to fourteen days and tells you how early you can afford to pinch next year. Record the date you first see a flower bud on any plant in the row, together with the sowing date of that row. Those two dates together give you the length of your own picking window, which varies far more between gardens than any general advice can account for. Keep a note of where each row sat as well, because a partly shaded bed will often add two or three weeks to a spring crop compared with an open one a few feet away.