Nicole Johnsey Burke grew huge cauliflower by planting in shade that kept soil 5-10°F cooler than full sun. Brassicas need 90-100 days at cool temperatures to form heads. Her shaded beds prevented bolting while sun-exposed broccoli bolted in mid-80s heat.
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If you've ever tried to grow cauliflower and not been successful, then you're going to want to watch this video because I have finally unlocked the secret to growing a huge, beautiful cauliflower head. My name is Nicole Johnsey Burke, and I've gardened in 3 different climates, from the heat of Houston, Texas, to the cold of Chicago, Illinois, now in the milder climate of Nashville, Tennessee, and it has been so hard for me to grow a huge, beautiful, organic cauliflower head, but this season I finally unlocked the secret. Now, cauliflower is in the Brassica plant family, and brassicas generally prefer cooler weather. So things like kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts—all of those plants are in the Brassica plant family, and they all love to grow when it's cold, cauliflower included. So the hard thing with cauliflower is getting the timing right because this plant is going to need 90 to 100 days from little seedling to huge cauliflower head, and it needs 90 to 100 days at a certain temperature. It really doesn't want for the weather to get too hot, but it also needs to be warm enough to get the plant to start photosynthesizing and growing. So This year I think I unlocked the secret, and it was the place of my plant and the time I planted it. So I started about 2 and a half months ago with a tiny little plant right here in my back two beds. If you followed me for any amount of time, you know that I always teach to put the garden on the south side of a tall structure, but I actually break that rule in my garden because right there are a ton of tall structures, otherwise known as trees. They're on the north side of that tall structure, so I've got these two beds in my garden that are almost completely shaded by trees from the beginning of winter all the way until summer solstice. You can see how they're just starting to get a little bit of dappled light on them. So for the last 2.5 months, as these cauliflower have grown, these two beds have been completely in the shade from sunup to sundown, and I think that has been the secret. In my front two beds, I've been growing broccoli heads, and broccoli is in the same plant family. It grows the exact same way, about 90 to 100 days to go from seedling to huge head, and those broccoli, they were ready about 2, 3, even 4 weeks ago, I started harvesting my first broccoli. The temperatures have risen to be in the mid-80s. We've even hit the 90s for a few days, and so all those broccoli heads that are in full sun, they've now bolted. The moment to harvest them, I had like a split second to catch my broccoli at its prime. Then the weather got too hot, the broccoli got too hot, and it all went to flower. Meanwhile, the cauliflower has just been slowly trucking along back here in the back garden, planted at the exact same time but much slower to form a head, which makes absolute sense because there's a lot less sun back here. I had pretty much given up on these cauliflower and thought, "Oh, there just wasn't enough sun, and this is not going to be a successful crop for me." But then over the last 5 or 6 days I've been gone, we've had a ton of rain, so I haven't been out to the garden. And today when I walked out, I have cauliflower heads forming on almost every single plant. This one especially is huge and beautiful and ready to harvest. And I thought, this is the secret. If you don't live in a mild climate, someplace like California where the weather is steadily in the 70s day after day, never getting too hot, never getting too cold. If you're not in a climate like that, but you still want to grow a plant like a cauliflower or a broccoli, something that takes 90 to 100 days, but often it gets too hot too fast, then plant these plants in a shadier spot. What this does for you is it gives you a little microclimate. Even as the temperatures rise, even as summer comes on a little too quickly, this shade gives these two beds a totally different temperature. The soil in these two back beds is probably 5 to 10 degrees cooler than the soil in my front beds, and that gives this cauliflower just enough time to fully form a head, look beautiful, and give me a ton of delicious food. When it comes to growing cauliflower, the setup and the timing is so important. That's what I teach in my Garden Game Plan workshop. In this class, it's about 30 minutes long, and I teach you how to get the setup, timing, and the planting right in your garden. If you want to join me, there's a class happening this week. Find the link right below this video. Now, beyond cauliflower, another really hard thing to get right in terms of timing and setup is potatoes, and I made a whole video showing you how do it right here.
