Page 36 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2024

Medwyn’s of Anglesey have generously provided a packet of free Romanesco seed (Navona F1 Hybrid) for all our NVS members with this SPRING edition of your SV Magazine. To provide you with some guidance on growing it, we asked Emily Harris to help by sharing her growing experience as she and her husband Chris, grew Romanesco a couple of years ago, albeit not the same variety. Often described as a “Romanesco Cauliflower”, the Romanesco is also known as a form of Calabrese and is considered to be a hybrid between cauliflower and broccoli.
The National Vegetable Society’s 2024 Chairman’s Challenge to be held at the National Championships at the South of England Autumn Show, Ardingly on 21 and 22 September 2024 is for a dish of two Romanesco using this seed kindly
provided by Medwyn’s of Anglesey. Medwyn advises that Navona F1
is a vigorous variety with a low level
of bracting. It is also reported to have excellent field holding ability which is great news for us gardeners. Medwyn, based in Anglesey, would normally do two sowings as a general rule of thumb, sowing the first lot mid-May and then followed by another sowing when the first is just germinating. This would enable him to plant out mid-June to July for a September/October harvest. Emily however, who lives in Essex
with a different climate has shared her notes from when she grew Romanesco previously. We hope this helps you, so please let us know how you get on later in the year.
Please find Emily’s article here which we are sure you will enjoy and find useful:
Growing
Romanesco Cauliflower
36 Simply Vegetables
FIONA SHENFIELD FNVS AND EMILY HARRIS FNVS
Although as far as we’re aware, Romanesco are relatively new on the grow your own scene, we were drawn
to giving them a try a couple of years ago after seeing a growing friend of ours exhibiting them at one of the RHS shows.
The real draw for me is the vivid lime colour and the spiral-like pattern of the curd, like a more glamorous version of your standard white cauliflower if you will. That being said, the reason we tend to grow more vegetables than flowers are that you can eat them as well as admire them, and Romanesco is no exception. They add a brilliant burst of colour to many dishes such as stir fry or simply steamed as an accompanying vegetable to your meal or raw with dips. Romanesco can be used
as a substitute or as an additive in many dishes calling for cauliflower or broccoli, though it has its own distinct flavour. I’d describe the flavour as a cross between
a cauliflower and broccoli, with a certain nuttiness that is hard to describe until you’ve tried it. They’re a winner on our dinner table in any case!
What we aim to do is share our previous experience of growing Romanesco with all the members to help you grow yours and also help to ensure the Chairman’s Challenge class is well supported with some show bench winners!
Romanesco are member of the brassica family, so we treated them very similarly in our garden. Although I will include some rough timings in this article, please remember that we are based in Essex and therefore please make allowances as the weather differs a lot up and down the country.
We sow the seeds in a good quality seed and modular compost before pricking out (usually pricking out about a week later in the warmer months) into 3” (7cm) square pots in a multi-purpose compost. The plants are grown on in these pots until they are ready to be planted out which
is – usually 3-4 weeks from the point they were pricked out – and when the plants are about 4”(10cm) tall with 3 or 4 true leaves, the young plants are planted out about
18” (45cm) apart with about 18” (45cm) between each row. Make sure to firm the plants in, otherwise their tender stems can sometimes be easily broken in windy