We transplanted the cauliflower from the hotbed frame to the garden on Thursday last. The day was overcast with periods of rain; dripping weather as the gardeners say and the most eligible of conditions for transplantation.
Still, we put the young cauliflowers under glasses to keep the wind off which is liable to lash them about and delay their recovery.
Cauliflower is amongst the most challenging of crops to grow. We find in Randolph’s Treatise on Gardening, this extraordinary advice:
“CAULIFLOWERS must be sown critically to a day, or else there is no dependence on the success of them.
“I cannot, nor do I find any one else capable of assigning a good reason for this, but the experience of this country, as well as England, verifies the proposition.
“We must there fore receive this fact as we do many others, rest ourselves satisfied, that the thing certainly exists, though the mode of existence is an impenetrable secret to us.”
In Virginia, he tells us, the proper days are April 12th in the spring and September the 12th in the fall, which is quite remarkable and makes one think that the weather in Mr. Randolph’s time was quite different as these dates would never work in Williamsburg today.
Roman broccoli
We have also begun harvesting the Roman Broccoli.
The most desired form of this plant produces an abundance of purple florets from the first of April until nearly the end of May.
It was somewhat slower coming in this year due, I suppose, to the exceptionally cold winter.
Modern gourmands generally use the green Calabrese form of broccoli which is a very recent introduction to the markets and has now supplanted the true broccoli of our ancestors.
The Roman, or Purple Sprouting Broccoli, is a biennial and must be planted in the fall for a spring harvest.
The individual florets are smaller than Calabrese but I find them to be sweeter and the prolonged harvest more amenable to the home gardener.
Leave a Reply