Broccoli vs. Cauliflower

[RebelRidin]

I enjoy the cauliflower but usually plant at least twice as much brocolli as it is a bit more reliable. I must be in a fortuanate postion though as I find cauliflower fairly trouble free. Below are pics of some of what I have this year. Both cauliflower (1st pic) and brocolli (2nd pic) went out on April 4th. The cauliflower will start to head soon (variety rated 58 day) and soon after the first of the brocolli (varieties rated at 70 and 90 day). I cultivate them pretty much the same except I give the cauliflower just a little more N than the brocolli.

I also plant my brocolli pretty close, but that is the way I prefer it for my garden. I don't usually leave it more than a couple weeks after the main head. I remove it in favor of bush beans which seem much happier in our summer weather.

[Cole_Robbie]

I have a flat of beautiful cauliflower plants and no one wants to buy them. I am never going to plant this stuff again.

Thank you all for your responses and I apologize for not responding sooner. Vladimir, I believe you're right. I have heard that cauliflower is harder to grow - I just didn't realize how much harder and think I'll forget about it in the future. It's not one of my very favorites (oh but SO good baked with butter and garlic and cumin!)
Tom, thank you for the tip on the wood ashes and water, I will certainly try it when needed. If I had root maggots, would not *all* the brassicas be showing signs?
Rebel, all your plants are beautiful! What, if anything, do you use for fertilizer?
Cole-Robbie (love the name!) I'm with you!
Thanks again, everyone!
Ronaye

[tjg911]

Tom, thank you for the tip on the wood ashes and water, I will certainly try it when needed. If I had root maggots, would not *all* the brassicas be showing signs?

no. i typically have this problem with my cabbages especially the 1st batch but the broccoli plants only 5-10' away seldom have it.

tom

[RebelRidin]

Originally Posted by Ronaye

Thank you all for your responses and I apologize for not responding sooner. Vladimir, I believe you're right. I have heard that cauliflower is harder to grow - I just didn't realize how much harder and think I'll forget about it in the future. It's not one of my very favorites (oh but SO good baked with butter and garlic and cumin!)
Tom, thank you for the tip on the wood ashes and water, I will certainly try it when needed. If I had root maggots, would not *all* the brassicas be showing signs?
Rebel, all your plants are beautiful! What, if anything, do you use for fertilizer?
Cole-Robbie (love the name!) I'm with you!
Thanks again, everyone!
Ronaye

Thanks Ronaye. This is only my second year in these raised beds with this soil mix. It is 1 part topsoil, 1 part Chesapeake Blue compost (chicken litter & crabshell based) and one part mushroom compost. We've been very happy with it all thus far

This spring I added about 1.5 inches of composted (several years rotted) horse stable bedding & manure (sawdust bedding). I also spread on one year of droppings from three rabbits (about 2 cubic feet manure/100 square feet). Then I turned the beds over to depth of about 8 inches by hand spading, sprinkled on Espoma Garden-tone (3-4-4) at a rate of 3 lbs/100 square feet and raked the beds smooth.

I think that will carry the spring garden through and be good for the peppers, beans, etc. For late cabbages I will side dress with Garden-tone (around now in fact) and for tomatoes I mixed about a thrid of a cup off Tomato-tone (3-4-6) in the bottom of the planting whole and will sidedress with Tomato-tone in a couple more weeks.

[SIP Gro-Tubs]

Originally Posted by Ronaye

It worked!!

The cauliflower at the top of that picture had collapsed, I'm thinking cutworms? I pulled it out and took a pic of the root but they all came out blurry. Here's one effort - it had only put out a few root "hairs", it was mainly stub. But if it was cutworms, shouldn't *all* the plants be affected?

Below is the root and if I do this right, another shot of broc v. cauliflower.

Thanks in advance for any opinions/suggestions!
Ronaye

Looks like Mole, or Gopher damage, the Pic is blurred but I, seem to make out a bite taken from the root.

Terry