Live and let die

I’m sure everyone’s been waiting breathlessly for my garden guru cousin’s verdict on my broccoli disaster. Well, here it is.

“I could do my doctorate on brassica problems.

“First thing, the plants look like calabrese, wrongly called broccoli throughout the restaurant and supermarket trades but not (yet) in the UK misnamed on the seed packets. Calabrese is an annual summer-maturing crop usually a foot or so tall with a single head like a small cauliflower and, when well-grown in the garden, one of the most delicious vegetables.

“Broccoli (sprouting broccoli) is a biannual, sown in spring, growing maybe a yard tall and producing many purple or white shoots or spears the following late winter or spring, depending on variety. It needs much more space, a couple of feet or more.

“Calabrese needs rich soil, full sun, plenty of moisture (which yours apparently had), no cold snaps (not even an unseasonably chilly hour overnight) and no competition from nearby plants – it looks from your pic as if large plants nearby could have spread their roots into the calabrese bed. The lack of any one of those could cause premature flowering called bolting. The reason is that the plant feels threatened so it immediately tries to reproduce itself by flowering in order to set seed. Other causes can be damage to the roots from a disease such as club root (the roots swell and start to crumble) or pests such as cabbage root fly, which lays its eggs at the roots - small white grubs hatch and eat the root. It's a wonder any brassicas ever get grown.

“All is not lost. You could still stir-fry the calabrese stems.”

I have now thanked him for these helpful hints (meanwhile giving up on ever trying to grow broccoli or calabrese again). In return, I shared with him this no doubt apocryphal tale.

In the late 19th century two Italian brothers emigrated from Calabria to New York. All they knew from their homeland was farming and that was the occupation they took up on Long Island. Amongst the vegetables they grew, sold in (and in this case introduced to) NYC was calabrese. Somehow this vegetable became known not by its Italian name, but by the name of the brothers who introduced it: Broccoli.

I can only assume the influence of Italian immigrant farmers spread throughout the US and Canada. Thus we have zucchini instead of courgettes (except, possibly in Quebec), cilantro instead of coriander and arugula instead of rocket - to name but a few.

PS: The grandson of one of those immigrant farmers, Albert (Cubby) Broccoli, turned out to also be quite a propagator. The James Bond franchise which he germinated 50 years ago is still going strong.

Raspberries for me, peas for Antler Boy

Well, there’s good news and bad news. Might as well get the bad news out of the way first.

Thanks to the 40 days and 40 nights of rain we had from May to the end of June (and where, one wonders, was Noah?), my brassicas took a beating.

My suspicion (awaiting confirmation from my garden guru cousin Peter) is that the cauliflower got so badly waterlogged that I will be hard pressed to get one cauliflower cheese out of the two of them put together.

The green cabbage still has a chance, I think, but the red cabbage is showing no inclination to do anything except sprout large outer (and no inner) leaves. I ha’e me doots about the Savoy cabbage, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

And then there’s the mystery of the broccoli. Before the sun finally came out, the heads (or whatever they’re called) weren’t worth harvesting. Then, what seemed like a day and a half later they’d gone completely to flower. What the fuck? (Another question sent off to Peter: Despite the addition of manure and lime, is it still my soil?)

So, now some good news.

The cherry tomatoes and red peppers, which I thought were going to rot in the rain, have stage a comeback. Amazing what sunlight can do.

Definitely tomatoes coming along.

And definitely some red peppers. (We have, however, been here before with the red peppers, so least said, soonest forgotten.)

Look closely and you will see (I swear) peas coming along nicely. Podding peas. Yum. (One for the pot, two for me was the ratio when I was a kid and I see no reason to change it.)

And look!

Yes, lettuce growing in the sun. Have had my very first salad with my very own lettuce. (Yeah, yeah, okay, so I didn’t grow them from seed. I tried, didn’t I?)

On the fruit front… (Yes, yes, I know tomatoes and peppers are fruit, but you also know what I mean, so shut up.)

There will soon be lots of luscious blueberries. Unlike last year, when the birds got most of them, I actually got around to putting some netting up. Live and learn.

And check out these raspberries!

As I’m picking today’s raspberries, I happen to glance across the road.

Uh, oh. Pat left his gate open when he went out and Antler Boy is having some peas for lunch. I walk across the road and yell at him.

Ever seen an animal whose expression more clearly says, “Who me?” I’m half way up the driveway before he finally bounces away.

Raspberries with lunch. Yum! And, no, you’re not mistaken. That is indeed a solitary strawberry in with the raspberries. Turns out the birds also like strawberries. Shame I didn’t put any netting up around them. Oh, well. Next year.