Visually striking, Roman turret cabbage – very aromatic and rich in vitamin C
Useful information: The Roman cauliflower Romanesco is a fantastic variety from Italy that produces pine-cone-like, yellow-green flower buds arranged in a logarithmic spiral. Romanesco tastes more aromatic than common cauliflower and also contains more vitamins and minerals. Because of its very distinctive shape the Romanesco is also called turret cabbage or minaret cabbage. Harvest as soon as the middle flower bud has properly developed, but is still closed. Cut off the whole stalk with flowers and remove the rooting and all other remaining parts of the plant from the compost. Cauliflower can be stored in the vegetable drawer of your fridge for about two or three days, before it will start to soften up. If you add some sugar and a dash of lemon juice to the boiling water, the cauliflower will keep its colour. Usually, cauliflower is cooked in saltwater and, in order to preserve the nice visual appearance, prepared as whole. However, you may as well cut it into smaller pieces to speed up the cooking process and cook the pieces more evenly. In Asian cuisine, smaller pieces of cauliflower are seared and cooked only for a short time in a wok and then served crunchy. Cauliflower pieces can also be prepared raw or blanched briefly as a raw vegetable salad. It is also very easy to make a cauliflower cream soup: for this, you just add some floury cooking potatoes and a cup of cream, and refine it with a little bit of nutmeg.
Natural location: Romanesco is a cauliflower variety that has been cultivated around the Italian city of Rome, hence its name.
Successful cultivation: You can start cultivation from January until March in a wind-sheltered cold frame with a fleece cover for frosty nights, or in pot on your windowsill. Plant three seeds per planting hole about 1 cm deep into coconut substrate or organic vegetable substrate. After germination, you can prick the seedlings out leaving only the strongest one. It will take about four to six weeks after seeding until the seedlings have properly developed. A temperature between 15° and 20° Celsius would be ideal for germination. Starting from the end of May, when there are no frosty nights ahead anymore, and as soon as the seedlings have developed a proper rooting, they can be planted out in the open. Provide some underlining/padding with compost and place the seedlings deep enough into the soil so that the roots are covered with about 1 cm of earth. Leave about 40 to 50 cm space between the plants.
The best location: The plant has high nutrient demand and grows best at a sunny place of the vegetable patch and in well-grounded, nutritious soil with a good water storage capacity.
Optimal care: The plant requires watering and nutrition regularly. Water generously, especially on hot days, but avoid water-logging. Weeding and loosening the surrounding soil from time to time will be rewarded by the plant producing a better harvest and flavour. After planting out, you may regularly provide your Broccoli with organic vegetable fertilizer until about two to three weeks before harvesting.
In the winter: The plant should be re-seeded every year.