“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.
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