How To Grow Cauliflowers

Cauliflowers are grown for their centre, the white head in the middle. They are one of the few vegetables that can be grown all year round as long as you pick the right variety for the right season.

They can take up quite a large space each due to the size of the leaves so best tried if you have a big bit of your patch doing nothing.

Soil Preparation for Cauliflowers - Dig the soil very well for several months, rather than weeks before sowing, as they prefer to grow well-consolidated soil, also making sure to dig in plenty of well-rotted compost.

When to sow Cauliflowers? - Start out sowing the seeds in compost in individual 5 to 6 cm pots, sowing them no more than around 1 cm deep.

Keep the pots in a sunny position indoors, until around 6 weeks after germinating when they can be hardened off outside before planting in your bed. Harden them off by gradually leaving them outside for longer and longer periods, bringing them in at night as required.

Planting and caring for Cauliflowers - Plant out the seedlings around 2 feet apart, with space in between rows around 100 cm. They like a cool position to grow in so that shady corner of your plot is ideal. Fertilizer every second watering after planting. Cabbage root fly is the worst problem and so you should place root fly discs around the base of the plants. They must be watered regularly as they like to be kept moist.

Harvesting Cauliflowers - In order to get the highest yield you should harvest the cauliflower plants before they have grown to full size. This also helps spread out the crop and avoids harvesting them all at once.

Harvest them by cutting with a sharp knife ensuring you cut the base of the floret just low enough to also harvest some of the leaves as this will help the floret from drying out too rapidly. You can store cauliflowers for up to 3 weeks by hanging them upside down and spraying them with water as required keeping them moist. They are best picked in the early morning to retain their moisture.

Then simply dig up the remains and put it into your composting bin, as unlike Broccoli, Cauliflowers will not grow new heads. If you have problems growing them read up on Cauliflower Pests And Diseases

If you like cauliflowers then why not find out more about How To Grow Cabbages.

By Richard Allen -