A few weeks ago I bought a tray of young, multi-coloured cauliflower plants at a dodgy market on the edge of town (the kind of market that sells bags of assorted meat cuts from the side of a lorry counting down the price “not for £20, not for £10…” Someone once asked if their eggs were organic and got the response “this one’s covered in chicken crap if that’s what you mean?”)
The photo on my cauli label showed four different colours, but contained no information as to what varieties they were, when they would be ready, or even which plant was what colour. My allotment book for beginners suggests planting them out between 20 and 30 inches apart, depending on variety. 30 inches is space we can ill afford on our narrow strips of earth. So they’ve gone in a bit closer together, with some fast growing turnips sown between the rows, and we’ll see what develops.
