Purple cauliflower

Last year we bought a purple cauliflower from the markets.  I am not a huge fan of cauliflower, but I liked that one.  It was a bit sweeter than normal cauliflower.

I have a general dislike of any of the cabbages, they are ok in small amounts, but in medium amounts I find them difficult to eat.  I didn't struggle eating the purple cauliflower as much as I struggle eating the white ones.

I decided to buy some cauliflower seeds and grow a few myself.  Strangely enough, it was really difficult to find seeds of purple cauliflower.  After a surprising amount of looking around I bought some cauliflower seeds.  I planted them in summer just before Christmas, and harvested them early spring.

One thing that surprised me was that they started out white, and gained purple colour once they matured.  The later we harvested them the more intense the purple colour.

Purple cauliflower

The leaves of the purple cauliflower plants were huge.  Some of the leaves had deep purple veins, others did not, there was a bit of genetic variation.  After harvesting the cauliflower I fed the large leaves to the chickens.  

We could have used the leaves like cabbage and eaten them ourselves, but our chickens loved eating the leaves so I think that was a better use of them.  There were a small number of snails and things on the leaves, which the chickens also ate.

Picked this one too early - they colour up as they mature

 

I grow everything organically, I don't even use the 'organic' poisons that are allowed on organic farms.  The first cauliflower looked nice, but when cut into pieces we found it was full of slugs and earwigs.  While they hadn't done any damage to the cauliflowers, they were hiding in them and it was really gross.

After that when I harvested a cauliflower I put the head in water for an hour.  That way anything that was living in it would flee in fear of drowning.  I am not sure how long was needed, all I know is an hour worked enough.

Something that all cabbages do is repel water.  When under water the few cauliflower leaves that I had not removed were covered in a thin film of air.  They shimmered and looked like silver.  My photos do not do them justice.

Even though there is that thin film of air this did not mean that any earwigs of slugs remained.  There was not enough air, so they all abandoned the cauliflower, meaning that the cauliflower was completely free of slugs etc.

Cauliflower leaves underwater look incredibly silvery in real life

I am not the best at growing any of the cabbage family.  I did ok with cauliflower, and will likely grow them again, but they will never be a main vegetable that I grow.  

Most of them grew massive, and others were tiny, I don't know if that was from growing conditions or genetics. 

Seeds of purple cauliflower are difficult to find at times.  If I save seed I will list any spare seed on my for sale page.