Final 12 months we purchased a purple cauliflower from the markets. I’m not an enormous fan of cauliflower, however I appreciated that one. It was a bit sweeter than regular cauliflower.
I’ve a normal dislike of any of the cabbages, they’re okay in small quantities, however in medium quantities I discover them troublesome to eat. I did not wrestle consuming the purple cauliflower as a lot as I wrestle consuming the white ones.
I made a decision to purchase some cauliflower seeds and develop a number of myself. Surprisingly sufficient, it was actually troublesome to seek out seeds of purple cauliflower. After a stunning quantity of wanting round I purchased some cauliflower seeds. I planted them in summer time simply earlier than Christmas, and harvested them early spring.
One factor that shocked me was that they began out white, and gained purple color as soon as they matured. The later we harvested them the extra intense the purple color.
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| Purple cauliflower |
The leaves of the purple cauliflower crops have been enormous. A few of the leaves had deep purple veins, others didn’t, there was a little bit of genetic variation. After harvesting the cauliflower I fed the massive leaves to the chickens.
We may have used the leaves like cabbage and eaten them ourselves, however our chickens liked consuming the leaves so I believe that was a greater use of them. There have been a small variety of snails and issues on the leaves, which the chickens additionally ate.
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| Picked this one too early – they color up as they mature |
I develop the whole lot organically, I do not even use the ‘natural’ poisons which can be allowed on natural farms. The primary cauliflower seemed good, however when minimize into items we discovered it was stuffed with slugs and earwigs. Whereas they hadn’t accomplished any harm to the cauliflowers, they have been hiding in them and it was actually gross.
After that after I harvested a cauliflower I put the pinnacle in water for an hour. That approach something that was residing in it will flee in worry of drowning. I’m not certain how lengthy was wanted, all I do know is an hour labored sufficient.
One thing that each one cabbages do is repel water. When beneath water the few cauliflower leaves that I had not eliminated have been coated in a skinny movie of air. They shimmered and seemed like silver. My photographs don’t do them justice.
Though there’s that skinny movie of air this didn’t imply that any earwigs of slugs remained. There was not sufficient air, so all of them deserted the cauliflower, which means that the cauliflower was utterly freed from slugs and so forth.
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| Cauliflower leaves underwater look extremely silvery in actual life |
I’m not the most effective at rising any of the cabbage household. I did happy with cauliflower, and can seemingly develop them once more, however they may by no means be a essential vegetable that I develop.
Most of them grew huge, and others have been tiny, I do not know if that was from rising circumstances or genetics.
Seeds of purple cauliflower are troublesome to seek out at occasions. If I save seed I’ll record any spare seed on my on the market web page.
