My grandpa always leaves some of the veg he grows to bloom so he can take the seeds to plant in the next year. It's really interesting to watch them develop!
For anyone in NE North America, our native Golden Alexander plant can be eaten in a similar way and tastes quite a bit like broccoli. As a bonus, it’s a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies, so it’s a wonderful addition to the garden!
I only know this because im a really shit gardener
Same, but it makes the bees happy.
Always a good thing. Bees, hell insects in general are being obliterated by climate change.
That's why some of us try to grow a pollinator garden. I'm not quite there yet because the property I bought was all paved in concrete, but I'm getting there. So many types of bees. It's beautiful to see. And others like butterflies are coming now, too.
I got "weeds" growing in my driveway. I told my landlord (dad) to not touch the decent flowering ones because it helps the bees. They arent blooming anymore but they had blue and purple flowers.
I dunno about growing a pollinator garden but we're just lazy and don't garden much at all and that seems to do the trick lmao.
the great thing about pollinator gardens is that they are always trying to grow, and you just have to let them do so
Just need to get those native plants growing and they can usually take care of themselves.
We've had success this year with grow bags. 8ft (2.5m) tomato plants producing faster than we can eat them
Broccoli comes from wild mustard, which flowers in order to reproduce.
In fact, many vegetables come from just that single plant - we've cultivated it in so many ways for so many years, we've got some very distinct varieties:
The germans almost got it right with the naming
| English | German | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Cabbage | Kohl | "Cabbage?" |
| Brussel Sprouts | Rosenkohl | "Rose Cabbage" |
| Kolarabi | Kohlrabi | "Rabbi's Cabbage" ^I'm^ ^joking^ |
| Kale | Grünkohl | "Green Cabbage" |
| Broccoli | Brokkoli | "Brother's Cabbage" ^Jk.^ ^They^ ^fucked^ ^up^ ^here^ |
| Cauliflower | Blumenkohl | "Flower Cabbage" |
Kale, Kohl, add Cauli all come from the same Latin word caulis, btw.
Brussel sprouts are also called "Kohlsprossen" in some german speaking areas -> cabbage sprouts. Cauliflower is also called "Karfiol" ("Car-fee-ol which i dont have a fucking clue how it came to be.)
From Italian cavolfiore (“cauliflower”), from cavolo (“cabbage”) + fiore (“flower”).
Seriously?? Wow, a friend had been talking my ear off with brassicacea fact and failed to mention this? Thanks for sharing!
B. oleracea gets all the fame.
B. rapa never gets the respect it should.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_rapa
Bok Choi
Bomdong
Choy sum
Komatsuna
Mizuna
Napa Cabbage
Rapini
Tatsoi
Turnip
Yellow Sarson
Oil seed Mustard
Wow, TIL that canola oil seed is natural hybridization of B. oleracea (Cabbage) and B. rapa (Chinese Cabbage).
I once had someone accuse me of being bourgeoisie for eating Brussels sprouts.
My parents had some lettuce on their balcony but failed to harvest it in time so it grew taller and taller. They gave it to a friend as a birthday present and nobody could say what weird plant they had brought.
"Let us see if anyone else can guess", accompanied by aggressive eyebrow movements.
Oh, you've met them.
That's called bolting, and it's no longer enjoyable to eat when it's done that.
So do the flowers smell like a fart too?
If your broccoli smells like a fart then that means you have overcooked it in water.
Try roasting that shit, you will find that broccoli smells and tastes fucking fantastic.
Does it taste better when it blooms?
Grew broccoli for the first time this year. The answer is worse, chewier, stringier.
It becomes bitter.
It’s closely related to mustard, and mustard’s distinct flavor is from the seeds. So I’d assume that if you leave it long enough for the blooms to seed, they’d taste similar to mustard. Most plants tend to get bitter after they bloom, because they send all of their nutrients to the flowers. And mustard does tend to be fairly bitter.
Does that make the flowers tastier?
Everything is a brassica.
This is called "bolting" in gardening terms, when a plant goes to flower or seed.
Not exactly. It is bolting when it starts sending up a flowering stem, the very beginning of flowering. Every broccoli I've ever eaten has bolted, but not many of them have bolted and flowered.
Huh, I've only heard bolting used when plants start flowering too early, before they've produced. Like lettuces or basil flowering before there are more than a couple leaves. Usually because they're too crowded or otherwise stressed.
Yeah, it usually used to indicate unwanted flowering, but in lettuces (and to a lesser extent, basil) it indicates the beginning of the flowering attempt by the plant. Most people will cull their lettuce after it bolts (stem starts to elongate into an inflorescence), but way before there are any open flowers or even buds.
Broccoli is weird though. We want it to bolt, but not really flower. That's an odd thing for most plants.
Does it taste good?
In my opinion, no. It is picked and consumed when the buds are still tight, if the head starts to loosen or the buds begin to open it has a more bitter taste to it.
I... don't know enough about broccoli to figure out if this is a meme or not.
I don't know enough about memes to figure out if this is broccoli or not.
It is not, with broccoli and cauliflower you literally eat the buds, or how they are called in English, and they can of course flower.
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