In the past I have grown cauliflower, but the heads always yellowed. I tried tieing the leaves over the heads, but the leaves were too short (or the heads were too big?). I gave up on cauliflower. However, this year my husband came up with a great idea that I need your opinions about. He suggested that I plant in a block, two short rows as close together as possible, and that we erect a shade cloth cover for the cauliflower when it starts to head up. The tent would be stapled to stakes, and only be overhead, no side drape. What do you think? Will there be enough sunlight for the plants to continue to grow? Will the heads have a better chance of staying white? Is there cauliflower in our future?
It might just work, MG...because one year I planted tall corn between my cauli's and the sun and they stayed white with the help of folding the leaves as far as they would go. I still plant some things, like leeks in this way and it seems to help. Good luck.
As an experiment the procedure has possibilities. It is however, lacking a control plant. In this case it is a plant left on its own that proves that the cauliflower would have turned yellow. Another question would be: how much sun exposure is needed to turn the blossom yellow? Hmmm..... Don't they turn brown? I think I heard that somewhere. Jerry
Jane, We used that concept, mostly to keep the cabbage loopers off the crops if at all possible, we used a row cover that was really wide and pegged it down, so if you are just shading yours I don't see why it wouldn't work. We had cauliflower under ours, but I didn't tie any of it and it looked fine, although mine was the purple variety. Have you looked into any of the newer hybrids out there? some of them are self-blanching and don't require any tying up. "Amazing" and "Self-Blanch" require no wrapping, it does it itself as it grows.
Jerry, I don't have your scientific turn of mind, so no control plant, and no monitoring of sunlight. I'll just be content to get attractive cauliflower (and may I borrow one of your tractors to bring it to the house from the garden?) Carolyn, I didn't know there were self-blanching types. I'll try that next year, but for this year I'll have to use starts from the feed store. Our feed store is conservative and doesn't stock varieties that haven't been proven locally during the past 100 years!
Jane, Very understandable. So next year order some seeds ( or if I have a lot I will let you know, I usually order in lots of 100 or 500) of only self blanching, and start your own. They are not hard to do. Hope your solution works for you like you are hoping. Although I would think it would. I do have a packet of mixed colors of cauliflower (purple, green, white and cheddar) and I do believe they are self blanching varieties, if you want to try some. Pm me and I will send you some of them, if it's not too late for your area, now.
I grow mine in the spring, cauliflower and broccoli in the same row. I have just taken the huge leaves on the broccoli and sometimes bottom leaves of cabbage, or whatever is big and used them to cover it. But if it yellows a bit, I don`t mind, In can`t tell any difference in taste as long as its not too old.
Mart, I had not thought of using broccoli leaves to cover the cauliflower. If this shade cloth thing doesn't work out this fall, I'll try using other plants' leaves in the spring. I am going to start some of the self-blanching types in the spring to see how that goes. Right now I have baby broccoli plants in the garden--their leaves wouldn't cover a pea!
They won`t keep it perfectly white but good enough for me. Just have to change them when they dry up.
