The Carrot Tops Allotment Blog!

Last year I didn’t grow any cauliflower and if I’m honest, I kind of regretted it. You really notice the difference between homegrown cauliflower and cauliflower bought from the shops. The variety I’ve chosen to grow is Cauliflower ‘All The Year Round’  which, as it name suggests, is a type of cauliflower that you can grow… All the year round.

I’ve grown Cauliflower ‘All The Year Round’  before and I was pleasantly impressed with the results, they were low maintenance, produced fantastic crops and were frozen without losing any of it’s flavour or texture.

The packet suggests that I can plant these seeds straight into the ground, but I’ve decided that as it’s still a little bit nippy outside, I’m starting these off inside of the cold frame. I’ve averages around four plants per cell and will look to thin these out when the seedlings start to poke through.

These seeds don’t look that much different from broccoli seeds, so a word of advice – be sure to properly label your trays otherwise you mind find yourself getting a little bit mixed up.

Cauliflowers have a history going back thousands of year. It’s believed they originated from southern Europe and after breeding by growers over several hundred years, the cauliflower as we know it today came to be in the 15th Century.

Cauliflowers were given the name Brassica oleracea by botanists and growers and is a mix of different words. The

The word Brassica comes from the Celtic ‘bresic’. Oleracea refers to a vegetable garden herb used in the kitchen. The name cauliflower comes from the Latin ‘caulis’ , translating to ‘stem’ or ‘cabbage’, and the Latin flos meaning ‘flower’.

Let’s face it, you can’t beat a bit of cauliflower cheese with your roast – but that said, there’s a lot of recipes out that I’d love to try for myself.

How do you like to cook your cauliflower? Leave a comment and let me know 🙂 .