Tag Archives: Cauliflower

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Clubbed

It didn’t take long to figure out I don’t like broccoli-raab.  Toooo bitter for my taste.   Rather than try to force it with something that I don’t like I decided to pull the 6 or 8 plants and use the space for something I did enjoy, like zucchini.  I pulled the plants and when I was starting to chop them for the compost pile I noticed the roots didn’t look right.  I hadn’t grow this plant before but had grown enough other brassicas to know what the roots are supposed to look like.  I didn’t have my glasses with me but I suspected club root.  My stomach sank.  Clubroot is a disease that, once you have it you have it forever.   I called Anita ad asked if she was coming back to the garden soon, I wanted a second opinion.  When she arrived my suspicions were confirmed.

I would go on to find it in the Helpline cauliflower that never really did look right and seemed to be perpetually wilted despite my watering religiously.  It appears the days of planting kale, broccoli and other brassicas are all but gone.

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Pea Trellis & Plans Gone Awry

The garden isn’t called Rock farm for no reason.  The beds are raised and bed rock is about a foot down, less in some spots.  This can make putting up posts for a pea or bean trellis somewhat of a challenge.  I left the posts in place from last year’s early peas but I’m still harvesting last years fall broccoli that is growing between them now.  They will hold the netting for pole beans later on.  The short row of peas needed its own posts.  I picked up a couple of small t-posts for that and hooked a 3/8″ green landscape bar across the top to hold the netting.  Pretty sure I got them in the ground far enough to hold.  The trickiest part was getting the netting on the top bar and attached to the side.  Tricky but I did prevail.

I had to pull all of the cauliflower and the single perennial kale today.  Something had gotten to the roots (root maggots?) so that meant digging out the soil in the area surrounding each plant for disposal.   My guess is that since they were planted so early, before anyone else had anything in the ground, the adults that were out looking for a good place to start a family all ended up there.   I put some Lisbon White Bunching green onion starts I picked up at Bainbridge Gardens .  I also put 8 Aspabroc “Baby Broccoli” in the Pak Choy bed.  This was sold as a ‘natural broccoli/asparagus’ hybrid aka broccolini.  We shall see.

I also found an ‘Egyptian Walking Onion’ at BG.  I used to grow those back in KY so I picked one up and tucked it in a corner of the garden.

I laid a perimeter of sluggo. and will probably go back tonight to plant a couple of short rows bush beans.  The plan calls for zucchini but I am not sure it has warmed up enough for that.  I’m thinking I’ll swap the two on the plan.  I haven’t been adhering to the garden plan 100%.  Still learning and adapting as I go along.

April’s Lessons Learned: Do not start brassica from seed too early. They may bolt.  Being the first to plant means the bugs will be in your bed first.