How is pinching—for more leaves, bushier plant—done on plants, unlike basil, that don’t grow in opposite leaf pairs?
Once the seed leaves appear I see just one leaf at a time coming out of the center of each plant, e.g., red kale, dill, red leaf beet, and often so many of the plants get leggy quickly, esp in my SG9s, as they stretch up for the lights before enough true leaves appear.
Because I have plants in new dill pods just putting out their first feathery leaf I cut back my September 21st planting because they look and act more like Rikki’s cat grass when it’s spent.
Indeed- every plant pod has specific care methods that promote better growth and higher yield. You can find suggestions how to do that on Click and Grow webstore under each plant pod.
The main difference how herbs regrow (thanks to pinching) comes from the family the belong to.
For example, basils belong to the mints family (Lamiaceae) and they grow leaves in pairs. So, if the tip is pinched off they regrow two new shoots, which makes the plant pushier.
On the other hand Dill, Parsley are members of umbellifers ( Apiaceae) and they regrow only from the growing point, that should never be cut if you plan to harvest multiple times. Dill is short lived and it is therefore recommended to be harvested at once or gradually leaf by leaf until the pod is two months old.
Edible salad greens can also be harvested several times. In Click and Grow gardens it is feasible to grow baby leaves, not fully grown green vegetables. E.g. Kale would need about three months to grow full sized leaves, red leaf beet a bit less, but still, harvesting in baby leaf size offers much more value, but takes much less time.
Rikki’s cat grass is monocots, they don’t really grow new shoots, but the same trimmed leaf should continue to grow for a little while. Is it wheat?
Rikki’s cat grass is wheat and sweet oat growing in a planter in potting soil, and once they reach about 4 inches in height I just trim some off the top of the blades for him.
For my plant pods, I do check the Plant Care pages but didn’t know about harvesting according to families. I harvested my first dill pods stem by stem—fresh dill is very tasty in a sandwich; ditto for thyme—and the dill lasted two months.
I started my 2nd dill on November 12, this time in one of my SG3s and I’m wishing I had removed the extension arm because the seedlings stretched quickly, fell over, and are growing like a jungle. The stems from the three pods were mixed with the stems in their neighboring dill pods until I separated them.
Do some of my plants stretch/get leggy because they get no other natural light? The nearest windows are about 12 feet away, so the only other light they get is from a large double fluorescent in my kitchen ceiling light.
