One of my all time favourite vegetables is cauliflower and for years I have been battling to grow them in my vegetable plot. When I say battling I mean fighting with pests and especially caterpillars who seem to devour my cauliflowers with as much passion as I do. Apart from the pests there has always been the issue of constant watering too, as mother nature doesn't provide quite as much as my cauliflowers demand on a regular basis.

So when I put in my raised beds and polytunnels I decided to sow some cauliflower seeds in October. The raised beds were ideal as I had added the rich compost I had made up from our chicken and horse dung. Cauliflowers also like a rich soil you see, so this was a perfect setting for them and the varieties that can be sown in October meant that I really did stand a chance of being successful.

The problems of growing cauliflowers is they don't like so many things. The frost , the wind, loose soil are all things that will set a harvest of cauliflowers back and add to this that they like their own space and it all seems like you would never get a good harvest. But by sowing my seeds in October, in my raised beds with the polytunnel over them, I know they are going to do well and next June I will be able to harvest some wonderful cauliflowers which I am really looking forward to. The ones we don't eat immediately will be put in the freezer because the varieties I chose lend themselves well to freezing.

I chose 2 varieties of cauliflowers, Snowball and Avalanche which are both miniature headed types. Although they do like their own space, the fact they are miniatures with compact heads means I have been able to plant them closer together which of course leads to getting a better crop next year in June. But if you do plant them further apart, then the heads will be bigger, it simply means you get less of them. Next to my cauliflowers I have planted winter spinach and winter lettuce as well as some onions and so far everything is looking and tasting very good indeed.