As mentioned, the leaves, flower clusters, and even the stems are all edible, so your plants should offer plenty to eat through the winter. Purple sprouting can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days, just like traditional broccoli. You can also extend the shelf life of your harvest by blanching the florets in water and freezing.
Yet once you get your first taste, these purple beauties will likely end up going straight from your garden to your plate. Adding a layer of mulch to the topsoil can also help prevent weeds from growing around your purple sprouting broccoli plants. Keeping your plants covered with a fine mesh screen can also help protect plants from insects and birds.
Broccoli is within the same family as cabbage, so common pests and diseases that affect cabbage can also plague your broccoli.
This includes pests such as the cabbage white caterpillar. To combat the cabbage white caterpillar, check the underside of your leaves for the yellowish eggs of the cabbage white. An application of an organic Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt-based insecticide , can handle most pests.
One of the biggest concerns for purple sprouting broccoli plants is wind. These plants have shallow roots and can grow up to three feet in height, so be sure to plant in a place protected from the wind. Support stakes can also help stabilize matured plants if needed. Even the most veggie-fearing friends and family will be won over by these perky purple florets.
Step 1 Sow the seeds into small pots or multi-cell trays, using a good quality multi-purpose or loam-based seed and cuttings compost. Sowing purple sprouting broccoli seed. Forking over the soil. Transplanting the young plants. Watering the broccoli plants. Double up for 1P more. Evergreen climbing hydrangea.
Buy now for year-round interest. Offer Ends: Tuesday, 30 November, You need to push the soil in around the roots firmly with your fingers to get good contact with the soil. Don't firm down on the top of the soil as this can compact it and prevent moisture getting down to the plants roots.
Don't forget if the summer is dry to water your broccoli. You can add a mulch of compost or bark around the plants to help conserve moisture. Keep an eye out for the cabbage white butterfly eggs on your purple sprouting broccoli plants.
Look under the leaves for the little yellow eggs and brush them off. Also if the weather is dry be aware that broccoli needs plenty of water at all stages in its growth. Dry plants will lead to poor growth and premature budding resulting in small heads. With winter approaching it's a good idea to prepare your broccoli for the coming bad weather, especially if you live in an exposed site. Draw soil up around the stems of the plants to help prevent them rocking in the wind.
If you live in a very windy area you can also stake the plants to be on the safe side. Drive a wooden stake in beside the plant and tie with some suitable soft twine. If the stems do become loose by the action of wind or frost firm them up with your boot.
Pigeons can will be getting hungrier this time of year and may turn their attention to your broccoli. Netting is the only answer here and highly recommended if you have a pigeon problem. You will see sharp v-cuts in the edge of the leaves made by their beaks if this is your issue. Harvest your broccoli when the purple heads appear and well before they turn to yellow flowers. When they first start to produce you'll probably be wondering was it worth the wait as you'll have a couple of little purple heads poking out of a lot of greenery.
Don't worry, they'll keep producing new shoots when you cut them. Your plants will start to produce in February and can sometimes keep going as far as May. The shoots can be cut at about 15cm long. It is very important you don't let them go into flower so even if you don't want to eat them straight away Which is unlikely! You can see the broccoli in the picture just starting to flower, off with its head!
If you have too much you can store it in a plastic bag in the fridge for a few days or blanch it and stick it in the freezer. On my allotment I would struggle to grow more than four plants due to space as I like all of the brassica tribe and at 60cm spacing each and a 12 month growing cycle, these are space hoggers.
The main pests of purple sprouting broccoli are slugs and snails, pigeons and cabbage white butterfly caterpillars, all of which enjoy eating the plants as much as we do.
I find the best way to stop almost all of these pests organically is to use a fine insect mesh as a barrier. There are ready made products you can buy that will do the trick search online for vegetable cages or netting. However, I go for the easiest option which is a set of 3cm thick garden stakes at 1. Peg in at regular intervals. This approach even stops larger snails, solving a large part of that problem. Whitefly is a problem on brassicas however, purple sprouting crops in winter when they are inactive so the bit you eat will be white fly free.
Unlike other summer and autumn ready brassicas where they are a larger issue. Club root is a fungal problem that can affect all brassicas and is the worst thing to happen to brassica growers. It causes lumpy, swollen and distorted looking roots that affect the growth of the plant.
Unfortunately it can last for 20 years or more in the soil, so once you have it there is nothing you can do to get rid of it. Which could cause you to give up growing brassicas altogether. The best thing is prevention, I will alway grow my brassicas from seed for this reason as it avoids importing the fungus in from other plants.
Another reason to only use your own tools in your own garden or allotment to avoid accidentally bringing in problems from soils elsewhere. Sow them early in March inside in cold areas and you could be eating broccoli spears in early winter and even late summer with the right cultivar. Harvesting is easy, you can see when ready because in late winter the purple florets emerge.
Then they quickly elongate and the absolute perfect moment is when all of the flower buds are evenly sized. Cut off low down each spear to whatever size you like, trying to gauge where the stem stops being succulent and turns a little woody — obviously you can trim later so go further if unsure. Fried in garlic with sliced almonds at the end they can be cooked and eaten exactly like asparagus, with a poached egg or as a side. Add a little chilli for some spice. Easiest is to boil for a few minutes or steam, steaming helping to minimise the risk of over cooking.
Boiling will wash out most of the purple colour and the spears magically turn green — the purple rinse water looking particularly off putting! There are other more elaborate recipes too if you are more daring than I in the kitchen, just search for purple sprouting broccoli recipes online. Some useful tips which I will take on board. All covered with net to keep out the pests. It looks a bit excessive but it really works.
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