Cauliflower 'Violet Queen' (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis)

Now THAT is cool and funky! How fun! Does it taste like regular white cauliflower?

Yes, except that it turns green when cooked.

Great color

Tell me your kidding with the var. name??? That doesn't sound too palatable LOL
Beautiful specimen BTW :)

I had to look at the name twice as well but there ya go, var. botrytis it is. From botrys Greek for a bunch of grapes, if you're really interested in the translation ;). We can only hope it refers to the curd florets being held in a bunch *G*

If you're wondering about the fungus Botrytis, the name refers to the way it holds it's spores, hows that for a bit of completely useless knowledge.

I should add that I actually bought the cauliflower from the farm shop up the road and asked it's variety name.

This message was edited Wednesday, Nov 6th 6:36 PM

Thanks for the info Baa - not useless at all.

Very enterprising LOL and there was i beginning to believe you were superhuman with all the things you grow. Well.......you may still be........ :-)

Cauliflowers are one of the plants I rarely manage to grow properly. The one consolation is that the hoverflies love the flowers .... vegetable gardening for wild life ;)

Yes cauliflowers are very tricky customers, i've rarely managed to get much from them - now broccoli on the other hand........
Interesting about the hoverflies, and of course the family has some notably scented members - eg rape ;) LOL
(OK stocks as well)

This cauli is a superb specimen though, and i love the colour!

It would make for a really eye-catching fresh relish tray, but I wonder if people would be brave enough to try it!

I'm in Hawaii and find that this variety is GREAT. Our bugs here don't seem to find it compared to other cauliflowers and broccolis. It grows year around for us, though it does better in the winter months here. And best of all, once we have harvested the heads, many of the plants will push up little shoots from the base of the stem. We will push soil up around them, wait a couple of weeks, then pull them up. We now replant them in the garden rows. Most will go on to develop normal heads. Some bolt or produce small heds, but by and large, most give us another nice crop of purple heads. ... Though the leaves look like cauliflower, the plant grows like a broccoli for us. As you can gather, we love it.

That's interesting, how you can get another batch from them.