Tag Archive for: Vegetable garden. cauliflower

Last week, I spent some time checking the vegetables my cool-season vegetable garden.  

I was looking to see how they were growing and if any were ready to harvest.  I’ve also learned (the hard way) that it’s important to check for any insect damage so you can treat it early – I got hit bad by spider mites last summer because I wasn’t paying attention.

I have been checking up on my cauliflower plants lately.  Seven days ago, the largest one looked like this…

cool-season vegetable garden

cool-season vegetable garden

Today, it looked like this…

cool-season vegetable garden

Okay, this photo doesn’t really show how big it is, so I put my hand next to it to show the scale…

cool-season vegetable garden

Now, compare this photo with the first one and you can see how big it grew in just one week!

My son, Kai and I harvested this large cauliflower by simply pulling the entire plant out of the ground. 

cool-season vegetable garden

It was quite heavy.   Of course, you can simply cut the cauliflower, but you have to pull the plant out sooner or later.  We chose sooner.

cauliflower

It was at least twice as large as the cauliflower in my local supermarket.  The photo really doesn’t show that though, but this bowl is very wide salad bowl.

cauliflower

I’ve really never noticed how pretty the cauliflower florets are before, have you?

We used some of the cauliflower in our dinner salad, which also included Romaine lettuce and carrots from our garden as well.

cauliflower

Our cauliflower is so huge, I will have to figure out other ways to serve it.

My son’s favorite is smothering it with ranch salad dressing.

I have three other cauliflower plants in the garden.  I may have to give some to my mother, since I don’t know how we will be able to eat it all.

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Cauliflower is a cool-season vegetable, which does best when planted from transplants and not seed.  I have had no problems with growing mine at all – no insect problems, etc.

What is important for growing cauliflower is fertile soil and regular irrigation.

How about you?  Do you grow cauliflower?

Do you have any cauliflower recipes to share? 

The other day, I stepped out into my vegetable garden to get a close up look at how my veggies are ripening.

Vegetable Garden

Vegetable Garden

It may be hard to tell what is what because at first sight, it looks like a sea of green.

In the back I have cauliflower and carrots growing among the nasturtiums.  Toward the front, I have green onions, green leaf lettuce, spinach, parsley and oregano.  

Vegetable Garden

The front part of the garden is full of San Marzano tomatoes, pink-flowering Oxalis (not a veggie), garlic and nasturtiums, which are spilling out of the garden.

Vegetable Garden

Lastly, the side garden has shallots, sugar snap peas and a single cauliflower.

I love this time of year when there is so much going on in the garden, don’t you?

Check out more gardening tips at

Gardening Tips at Readers Digest

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I would like to thank you all for your supportive comments concerning the flooding of our house.

We currently have 30 high power fans and 2 large de-humidifiers working in our house.  Unfortunately, that makes the air very warm – 90 degrees inside.

My kitchen is non-functional while appliances are pulled away from the walls, so we are eating out quite a bit (which really isn’t all that bad 😉

The interior walls, furniture and carpet were destroyed.  Thankfully, the insurance company has been very helpful.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

New Vegetable Garden Finally Finished!