how do they do it?

I know the feeling RW, I've given up trying Summer caulis (but I can grow Autumn Calabrese quite well )

Down here the farmers have to use an awful lot of water on their cauli fields, to get a decent sized head. If you drive out round Kent, you see the water spinners working all the time.

yes i take your point Jambop but we also buy good quality FI seed the same seed as the commercial grower and our cauli flowers are raised from seed to planting out in our greenhouses or poly tunnel before transplanting into a raised bed that's prep'd prior to planting

the only thing missing is constant water only hand watering? now a friend of ours grows cauliflowers in another village on his allotment not FI seed no faffing about with pre-prep no manure only a good quality fertilizer and he has good quality cauliflowers but his allotments has good black soil much better than our allotments

i tend to agree with Mum watering plays a very important part of growing good quality cauliflowers because as i said in my original topic we have very good results from overwintering  cauliflowers that are raised from seed in the poly tunnel for spring planting the variety we grow are Boris good big cauliflowers
not a problem

so it looks like I've got 2 options 1 grow autumn calabrese or 2  work harder to grow summer cauliflowers 

the wife and me where looking  round a farmers shop yesterday when i seen some lovely cauliflowers it said locally grown on our farm they where quite a good size selling at £1.25 each

it made me think how do they grow cauliflowers that good when ours are like golf balls and only fit for the compost bin the only cauli we get good results from are those grown overwinter I've got to be doing something wrong with growing summer cauliflowers is it the variety I'm growing is it the ground summer cauliflowers i wish

Used to be a farmer back in Hampshire would grow 10 acres of them all the size of footballs and his cabbage were as big as medicine balls !
A friend had known him and even helped him at harvest time but never managed crops like the farmer on the allotment.

I grow Clapton and Candid Charm caulies and don't use any chemicals whatsoever.  I'm no expert, but always have good sized, tight, clean heads.  They are greedy feeders, and I usually use fish blood and bone to give them a long, steady feed, together with plenty of water. I grow them under scaffold netting and I stitch up the little slots that you sometimes get in it because the butterflies will squeeze through these. Clapton doesn't suffer from it, but Candid Charm is possibly prone to club root if you have it on your plot, so I always lime the bed well a few weeks before planting.  I would imagine that they need a decent soil and probably wouldn't grow very well on thin, sandy soils, so I'm lucky to have quite a heavy soil.

it sounds like you've cracked growing cauliflowers jaydig I've taken on board your feedback that's definitely worth trying next season and logged it in my garden log

i have also been looking at some of the varieties commercial growers use and the setting tables of the varieties some that are not listed in the ordinary seed catalogues  some of the F1 seed is quite expensive i also note that the sowings start from Jan to mid May

but once again very interesting replies from all who have commented many thanks