Soilman

Gardening’s a bit like corporate advertising: You know that 50% of it will be ineffective. You just don’t know which 50%.

Every year I try to grow and plant out the broadest range of vegetables I can, in the full and certain knowledge that some (many?) won’t ultimately produce much, if any, food. Some will be an utter write-off.

Why waste so much time and effort?

Because in the UK, the weather is so fucking unpredictable. It can be freezing cold and wet, freezing cold and dry, hot and wet, hot and dry, hot/cold/wet/windy/dry and Christ alone knows what else.

Result: there is no such thing as a season that suits every vegetable. So some thrive, and some die – you just don’t know, in April, which will be which.

Come June, though, the clues are mounting up. And I reckon these cauliflowers are doomed. I got them in late, they struggled to get going, and now we’re getting some seriously hot and dry weather – the conditions they loathe most.

RIP Soilman cauliflower crop 2010.