I planted three Romanesco Broccoli/Cauliflowers for the first time this spring. By October they had grown to almost 4 ft tall and wide, but had not developed any "heads" to harvest. I had peppers, ordinary broccoli, and eggplant in the same sunny location and they did fine. I fertilized lightly at planting time and one month later. Should I have done something else?
from what ive read, this variety is notorious for taking its sweet time about producing any heads, often times the plants getting as big as yours is right here before you finally begin to notice a tiny head in the center starting to show itself. so i would give it more time and keep tending to it. And hey, if it never does produce any heads, the broccoli plant itself can be eaten as well, so it wouldnt be a complete total waste ;)
Concur with jmc
If you go back to your seed catalog & check "days to maturity", I think you will find that Romanesco has the longest number of days to maturity of all the broccoli & cauliflower.
The catalog info said "75-100 days, a good choice for northern gardens". So far we are on 150+ days (and counting!). Thanks for the encouragement, I'll try to be patient.
This might be a plus for living above the Mason Dixon line but how is your life line?
Frost is here and still no heads.
I asked seed supplier for advice. They suggested "Stress, high pH, too much nitrogen in soil, or too warm weather when heads were forming". None of those apply. They also suggested growing it as a fall crop, but since their catalog said it took 75-100 days to ripen, that seems strange, but I'll try it next year.
well, as mentioned before, you can still at least use the leaves as a substitute for spinach ;)
Although actually broccoli falls within that class of plants that can make it through heavy frosts, and even a light freeze
