Grow cauliflower
2024-10-01T15:34:54+10:00
From cauliflower cheese to pie crusts and buffalo wings, this shapeshifter veg is never boring and isn’t very hard to grow.
Growing a crop of cauliflowers can fill a backyard gardener with pride. Driven by the dream of a perfectly formed, pure white curd, we lovingly nurture the plants and protect them from marauding pests. And when harvest day finally arrives, we march that big plump beauty to the kitchen with our chests puffed out.
Of course, things can go dreadfully wrong. Cauliflower plants may end up stunted, or covered in caterpillars, with loose heads as small as tennis balls and not as white as we’d hoped. It’s true that caulis can be tricky when you’re new to gardening, but once you have the basics sorted, you’ll be growing big, beautiful curds every time.
Getting started
Like most plants in the cabbage family (Brassicaceae), cauliflowers prefer cool conditions. Now is a good time to sow seed or purchase seedlings in preparation for autumn planting. Start seed in punnets so you can move them around to suit the conditions. If it’s a hot, sunny day, set up a shadecloth or move them into a spot with dappled light. Don’t put them in full shade; the seedlings will become leggy and weak.
Once the seedlings are big enough to handle, plant them individually into 10cm pots of premium potting mix. Grow them in pots until the summer heat has passed and it’s cool enough to plant them in the ground. Every week, give your potted seedlings some liquid fertiliser mixed at half strength, to support healthy growth.
Growing and harvesting cauliflower
When planting cauliflower seedlings, space them about 45cm apart. Feel free to bury the stems, as this will give the plants added stability. They can become top heavy as they develop, causing them to tip over and expose their roots, which can be fatal. If they need support, push in a short bamboo stake next to each plant.
Caulis are big feeders, and sulk if they don’t get enough food. Be generous when preparing their soil. Add plenty of compost, some well-rotted manure, and a good handful of blood and bone and pelletised chicken manure per square metre. They like a soil pH of 6.5. If yours is below that, add lime. Spread fertiliser around plants in another 4–6 weeks, and supplement with a fortnightly application of liquid fertiliser.
Keep up your routine of managing cabbage white butterfly, and look out for infestations of grey aphids on the leaves. Aphids can be cleared up with a sharp spray of water from the hose or a couple of applications of soap spray. Slugs and snails love caulis, so check over the leaves regularly and pick them off. If numbers are up, put out some beer traps to lure them in. They can’t resist!
It normally takes about three months for cauliflower curds to appear. Exposure to the elements can cause discolouration of the curds. This doesn’t affect the eating quality of your caulis at all, but if you’re aiming for prize-winning purity, protect them by pulling some leaves over each curd and tying them in place with twine.
Once a curd has formed a nice tight head, use a knife to cut it from the plant. Be ready to grab it as soon as it looks ready. When you leave a cauli on too long, the head becomes loose as the florets separate, but it’ll still be good to eat.
Pests
You may already know about cauliflower’s greatest foe – the larvae of the cabbage white butterfly. It’s a hungry leaf chewer that causes terrible problems. If the butterflies lay eggs on your seedlings, the emerging caterpillars will decimate them in days. Take precautions by covering the seedlings with pest-exclusion netting or spraying regularly with a bio-insecticide such as Dipel.
