Broccoli: Purple Sprouting Organic Seed

Description

Why grow Purple Sprouting broccoli?

A hardy garden favourite producing succulent purple spears when relatively little else is ready to harvest.

At a glance

• Packet: 65 Organic Purple Sprouting Broccoli Seeds [approx]
• Botanical name: Brassica oleracea
• Sow: March to July
• Harvest: November to May

How to grow

If sown early in the year, purple sprouting broccoli can be ready for harvest over winter, it is very hardy. Otherwise it will provide a nice early crop in spring of the following year, when little else is ready to be harvested. Start the seeds in a multi-cell tray or small pots. Transplant them into a well prepared bed when they are 7cm to 9cm in height. Plant them at a distance of about 60cm apart. Purple sprouting broccoli is ready to harvest when flower shoots are well developed, but harvesting should be done just before the flowers have opened. Cut the centre spear first as this will encourage more growth.