Seven Steps to Perfect Cauliflowers
 (Read 500+ times)
By Zac Mace
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Seven Steps to Perfect Cauliflowers
Cauliflowers have a reputation for being particularly hard to grow, however if you follow these seven simple steps you can impress your friends with your amazingly tasty homegrown cauliflowers.
Preparation
One of the most important steps is preparing the bed. Not only are brassicas incredibly hungry plants, but they also require a mildly alkali soil. If possible dig in some well-rotted manure a month or two before planting out and buy a PH testing kit. If required add a little lime to raise the PH to approximately 7.5, however ensure to leave at least a month between adding manure and the lime.
In the days before planting out, I like to add a general-purpose fertiliser (such as blood fish and bone) as I rake the bed in final preparation.
Hardening off
If the seedlings have been raised in a green house, ensure they are hardened off correctly prior to planting out, preferably using a cold frame. Cauliflower seedlings are particularly prone to suffering lasting damage as a result of not being hardened off. In the worse cases it can result in tiny gold ball sized heads.
Cabbage collars
Cabbage (or brassica) collars prevent the cabbage root fly pupae from gaining access to the roots of the cauliflower. Cabbage collars can be bought inexpensively, or can be made from squares of carpet underlay, or even felt. Take a square of the material and simply cut a slit from one edge to the midway point and then slide this around the seedling’s stem once it has been planted out.
Netting
Net your crop well, there is nothing worse than suddenly finding a plague of caterpillars eating their way through your cauliflowers. As always prevention is better than cure; once you have caterpillars on your brassicas it is almost impossible to rid yourself of them. The netting will also keep out pigeons and other unwelcome wildlife intent on feeding on your prized crops.
Feeding & Watering
Cauliflowers are hungry crops and will do best with a monthly addition of a high nitrogen fertiliser. During dry periods ensure you water regularly and thoroughly, sporadic watering will cause the formation of very small heads.
Slug control
Slugs are a problem for every gardener, but they particularly love the tender leaves of brassicas. Given the chance slugs will happily destroy the hearts as well as the leaves, so yet again prevention is better than cure. There are a huge number of ways to kill slugs, ranging from beer traps (slug pubs), to hand picking and chemical based pellets. All have their advantages, however I have recently turned to nematodes for my slug control and they have proven very effective. The nematodes are marketed in the UK under the name nemaslug.
Harvesting
As frequently happens when growing vegetables, cauliflowers have a tendency to all mature at the same time. To prevent a glut, start harvesting the cauliflowers when still small (from about the size of a fist).
You can also make regular sowings every 3 weeks to give you a good harvest period.
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Author Bio Box: Zac Mace
Zac Mace is a keen vegetable gardener in his spare time when he is not working, entertaining his two daughters or updating his Cold Frame website.
For further information about using nematodes to control slugs see Nemaslug Slug Killer.
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