Imposter Broccoli

At last I've broken through the business of the final weeks of semester. Chapters are done (though a new one started), paper done and given and divisive as always and all my essays are marked! Now I finally have time to garden ... well at least I would be gardening if it didn't keep raining all the time! It is great that Melbourne is getting rain, but it is so much and all at once, and some trees have started wilting from getting water logged! I can't even get out there to clean up the leaves and things so it is all starting to get a little manky. I will just have to wait and hope.

Today's post is also about waiting. Waiting for Godot, ok not Godot but a little romanesco broccolli. I planted him as a seed so so so long ago in April with a few friends, all of whom got eaten by snails. He was, so to say, the last hope.

He wandered from pot to pot, often not liking the crowded conditions. It was only when he recieved his own pot that he started to grow. Now romanesco is no ordinary broccoli, actually to me it is more like a mutant cauliflower but we won't go there. It is fractally shaped, showing the beauty of nature's patterns in its tasty goodness. Usually they are also a pale green.

Turns out the wait wasn't really worth it. The head started out ok, albeit rather purple.

Then I left it a bit long and it started to grow. I was waiting for the geometric miracle that was never to be.

Now it is all purple and like little heads of broccolini. Each floret grew out instead of in a fractal pattern and it became woody. It is certainly not a romanesco broccoli and it tastes awful. It needs to come out to make way for the plants growing in the spring garden but it does look kind of pretty. Maybe I'll leave it in until the rain stops, my little imposter broccoli.

Have you ever been a little disapointed by a plant? Putting in the time and effort to grow it from seed and nurture it and tend to its every need only to find out it wasn't what the packet said?