broccoli romanesco

Oh my. Did I ever get sick last week.  A bad flu was going around and sounds like lots of folks I know had it too.  Spring Equinox is not a good time for me to be knocked out in bed......just when my annual garden panic sets in and it once again becomes painfully obvious that I've bitten off more than I can chew.  Oh well....I'm getting better now and some weeding and seeding has started up around here again.

Here's a sweet little Broccoli Romanesco plant that was seeded a couple weeks ago.

It's hard to believe that this teeny tiny plant will become this soon...

This is Broccoli Romanesco in my garden a couple years ago.  It's one of my favourite vegetables ever.  Just look at how beautiful this amazing specimen is!  It's delicious too.

It's actually a lot like cauliflower in habit, texture and taste.  Sometimes called Roman Cauliflower.  What an amazing example of nature's design with it's infinite fractal patterns.  If that seems interesting to you, check this out.

This was my original inspiration to grow this beautiful brassica...a basket full I spied at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market in San Francisco a few years ago.  It was January!  Those lucky folks get to pull these lovelies out of their ground in January.  That might work here tooo (under a low poly tunnel?) I'll have to try this year.  Don't they look gorgeous next to the brilliant ruby red radicchios?

                                          So in February when I spotted these inspiring looking seed packets from Italy, I just had to get a couple (three to be exact) because they were so  nice to look at....including the Romanesco Broccoli.  I'm also really looking forward to those nice little onions in salads this summer.  Here they are sprouting up in the greenhouse a few weeks ago....

And back to the Romanesco Broccoli....I like to time it in my garden so we can have it sauteed with sugar snap peas, red cherry tomatoes and purple cauliflower...so beautiful and delicious and nutritious.  Hopefully, this year I'll be able to time this combo for my harvest basket customers too.

Now's a good time to start all these seeds so if you'd like to grow this dinner time experience, West Coast Seeds carries the seeds that they call Natalino and Territorial Seeds carries the purple cauliflower Graffiti and broccoli Veronica.  Graffiti is nice because it doesn't lose it's purple colour when cooked like some other purple veggies do.  Any cherry tomato (these are Tumbler) and any sugar snap pea you grow will be nice.