Week 3

It seems Summer has made an early entrance this year, but we know all too well that it might not last, so we must make hay while the sun shines. Every living thing on the plot is responding to the soaring temperatures with orgiastic enthusiasm. Even I am becoming rather obsessed — I’ve turned down dinner invitations to put in the gardening hours, and edible plants are featuring in my dreams nightly.

Tending my allotment has been a terrific health boost for me, not only in terms of the copious amounts of fresh greens I consume almost daily, but who needs the gym when there’s digging, weeding and planting to be done?

Last week I spent a good three hours burning some serious calories as I wrestled with 12 giant purple sprouting broccoli plants, most bigger than me, that had to be dug up and man-handled to the skip (I cut off and composted the softer blooms). It was time for everything in the brassica patch to go — kale and rocket, too — to make room for my bean selection.

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I was just about to massacre four cauliflowers that I planted for the first time ever about a year ago. They produced a lot of robust foliage but, disappointingly, no caulis. I thought I’d better have one more look inside the many, many layers of blue-green leafage before heaving them to the compost, and hark! Perfect white curds the size of a grapefruit had emerged.

My Jamaican plot neighbour Fred had given me these seedlings last year, and I had been monitoring his as well with great consternation as to why none of them had produced. So, I immediately trotted over to check his plants, and I’ve never seen anything like it — cauliflowers the size of basketballs, quite literally. How does he do it?

UK cauliflower growers have been having a tough time of it lately (see Fiona Sims’ article Cauliflower Power. It’s not difficult to see how this could be true when these gargantuan plants, which take up over one metre square, only produce one cauliflower, and once harvested, it’s all over for the plant.

If they can’t fetch a decent price, they can’t be commercially viable considering the space and time they demand. A passer-by yesterday was admiring the plants and told me the leaves are delicious for cooking, too, so I am eager to try, as they look truly succulent, and there certainly are plenty of them.

Elsewhere on the plot, I’ve been getting my new brassica seedlings planted — five each of cavolo nero and scarlet kale which I grew from seed. Two giant “Cinderella’s Carriage” pumpkin plants are now set to dominate an entire corner of the plot, and two bean frames are in place with yard-long beans and asparagus peas set to climb them.

I’ve been hacking down forests of nettles and dandelions in bloom (remember, “one year’s seeding is seven years’ weeding”). The true work is just beginning — both embracing and battling Nature for my plot-to-plate rewards.

TIP OF THE WEEK: Cut your cauliflower when the curds are still compact and bright white — once they start to separate and turn yellow they are past it. Any budding cauliflower curds which are exposed to sunlight should be covered up if you want to keep them pristine while they develop further — simply break one of the surrounding leaves over the curds to protect.

Seasonal Recipe: Luxury cauliflower cheese

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