I’ve got a pretty good green thumb when it comes to outdoor plants and the vegetable garden. On top of that I love to experiment. We’ve grown our own sweet potatoes, celery, kidney beans, black beans and even pak choi one year. But for the life of me I can’t grow cauliflower. OK, I’ve only tried twice but after two failed years I give up.

Last year I planted starts from the garden center. Purchased a little late in the season they didn’t really grow and just went to seed. Figuring that I started when the season was too warm & the garden dry, this year I purchased my starts just as the season began. They were planted in the garden at the beginning of May and did quite well for a couple of weeks. Wednesday I looked out and two were basically wilted. This, after almost 2 inches of rain so no way were they dry (nor waterlogged as we have great soil). Yesterday, one more bit the dust. So that leaves just one left, and it’s not looking too good. The only thing I can guess is that the cold weather last weekend harmed them, despite being covered by floating row covers although I thought they were a cold season crop. It can’t be the soil since the row of red cabbage right next to the cauliflower looks great. Cutworms perhaps but they were pretty big by this stage.

So that’s it, no more cauliflower for our garden. I think cauliflower is destined to be our winter vegetable. One of the few nice looking vegetables you can consistently find in the produce aisles in the grocery store in winter, we eat a lot of cauliflower during the off season and in fact are pretty tired of it by the time spring arrives. Perhaps it was meant to be.