Cauliflower rant.

Im back from holidays in Mexico - Its been a couple of weeks - Time for a post.

In about a month’s time, I'm hoping for a return on my investment of time and efforts with the over wintered cauliflower experiment. They are looking very healthy now but with these vegetables being particularly fussy and the odds stacked against you in many respects, you can only do what you can do and wait several months before you find out if you did it well or you ended up with a sweaty sponge of minuscule proportions.

Growing the humble Cauliflower it’s kind of like going to war as a Spartan. Death or Glory. Actually is nothing like that at all as Cauliflowers can't throw spears and don’t look menacing enough to be considered a warrior race. But in essence - You either fail miserably or glory in your marvellous achievements’.

Mine have been in the ground since August last year. I started them from seed in June. I have watched patiently, weeded regularly and protected the bed with a "ring of Steel" to fend off early sabotage attempts by feathered brassica jihadists.

Throughout the winter I watched over the caulis wondering "what’s the point of this over wintering ball hocks". They just sat there without much sign of growth, which then ground to a complete halt whilst being battered by cold harsh frosts, snow and no sun light.

One gave up the ghost and popped its clogs two days before Christmas. It was like loosing a family member. Its death cannot be explained. It looked in good health a week before hand, I found it keeled over looking rather slimy so I pulled it out and buried it in the bean trench so at least some good will come of it - for the beans at least. Not that I'm in the habit of burying family members in my bean trench so it wasn't really like a family member really at all, more like a pet goldfish or something I wouldn't think twice about lobbing in the bean trench if it died.

Then as the frosts rescinded, the surviving brood have had treats of blood and bone meal, well rotted manure and rain water from my butt (water). I have even given them a dose of diluted seaweed concentrate which is like a natural anabolic steroid for hungry plants.

Now the weather is warming and some serious growth has begun again, a new wave of lesser attacks have begun.

I have kept the white fly at bay with soapy water spray to clog up the little bastards breathing ducts. Snails and slugs found in the bed have been skewered onto a length of garden twine and their shrivelled remains hung up to ward off theirs friend and family.

Any outer yellowing leaves and the little suckers that sometimes grow at the base have been removed.

There doesn’t seem to be any advice in any of the publicised growing guides that I own so I have consulted Soilmans thread as he also loves the good fight that is the cultivation of Cauliflowers.

Hoeing this little bed is off limits, it's regularly hand weeded to ensure that all the available nutrients are available to my crop, and does not become a feast for the weeds which have gotten into full swing too now.

You can’t compare foreign imported shop bought mass produced long term vegegatbles that'll only cost you seventy pence from the non organic section of a billion pound a week supermarket. Home grown cauliflower is not easy, it can be a pain in the proverbials to avoid the pigeon attacks, adverse weather conditions, slugs and snails and if you don’t get their fussy little requirements’ just right, or forget to pick them on just the right day you still end up with a stinky - yellow - tennis ball sized - loose headed - crap end product.

Get it right on the other hand and you have bragging rights over your fellow farmers and gain respect from the old guard over the plots as you strap your gigantic beast like vegetables to the roof rack of your car and parade it around town playing bagpipe music from your cd player with all your windows down and a pair of ray bans on with one hand waving at the admiring onlookers.

Mine by contrast to Tesco’s perfectly formed jolly foreigners are 100% British and 100% organic.
There will be zero food miles in carting them home (Apart from the victory parade). Even if they taste like a cocktail of horse shit and seaweed and look like they have fallen out of the back end of a bison's bum they are going to get eaten.

So unlike the 65% of vegetables grown that never even reach your dinner plate there will have been a point to their existence.