Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Purple Sprouting Broc , a set on Flickr.

I love purple sprouting broccoli. Grown from seed this plant has taken almost a year to bear its sprouts but it is well worth the wait. We first created a little nursery and grew from seed planting on when ready – almost a foot tall. At first they fared well, and then many of them started growing club root so they were yanked out. At one point I lost hope and another row got yanked out. I’m now left with 5 plants dotted around the plot and as a result of just leaving those alone have as much broccoli as we can eat. It’s gorgeous too. The first big handful I completely over cooked as I didn’t realise how fresh it was and delicate in taste. It has a slight bitterness but with it a real sense of eating greens. I now feel that I have a real sense of this amazing plant and understand that the sprouts would eventually come.
I harvest by cutting down the stem and then leaving two or three little shoots to grow and it seems to be working – the more I harvest the more I seem to have every time I go back. In fact I think this is the trick to growing certain veg, you need to make room for new growth. One of the plants has club root and is growing but not as good or as big as the other 5. I use a different set of shears to cut those sprouts off as it is easy to transfer club root to other parts of the allotment. And I wasn’t sure about eating off this plant but its fine. I just won’t grow any brasiccas in that area next year. What I will be doing though is growing this very generous and giving plant with no real hard work associated with good grief I would be missing something if I didn’t have this on the plot. And yes some of my friends who know me would be gob smacked at exactly how much PSB I have eat in the last 3 or 4 weeks. So a good veg to grow for those fussy kids.