🥦 Sprouting broccoli

Purple sprouting broccoli is one of the highlights of the vegetable year, producing tender, sweet spears in late winter and early spring, during the ‘hungry gap’ when little else is ready. It is a large, hardy plant that takes up space for almost a year.

That investment pays off with weeks of pickings from each plant. It suits medium and large plots, and needs staking and netting, but needs little more than watering. White-sprouting types are also available.

Varieties to try

Early Purple Sprouting (traditional, reliable)Claret (heavy-cropping F1)Rudolph (early, from Jan)Purple Sprouting Late (extends picking to May)White Eye (white sprouting)

Sow in April and May in seed trays or modules, or in a seedbed outdoors, 1–2 cm deep, and keep watered. Seedlings are ready to plant in a month to six weeks, at 10–15 cm tall. Plant them in June to July, 60 cm apart in rows 75 cm apart, setting them deeply into firm soil.

Choose an open, sunny site with firm, fertile, well-drained soil, ideally where legumes grew the previous year, and lime if the soil is acidic. Tread the soil firm before planting and water in well. Net the plants straight away, as pigeons are the main threat.

Top tips

• Plant into firm soil and tread it down.
• Choose early, mid and late varieties for a long season.
• Net from the outset.
• Do not plant in soil recently manured, which gives soft growth.

Water in dry spells during summer, and feed with a nitrogen-rich fertiliser in midsummer. Remove weeds, and earth up the stems in autumn and stake the plants in exposed places, as tall plants rock in winter gales and the roots loosen.

Pigeons, cabbage white caterpillars and aphids are the main nuisances, and a fine-mesh brassica cage deals with all three. Remove yellow leaves, which attract slugs and disease. Clubroot is the risk in acid soil; lime and rotate.

Top tips

• Stake or earth up plants for winter.
• A fine-mesh cage keeps out pigeons and butterflies.
• Remove yellowing leaves to stop slugs and rot.
• Lime the soil and rotate brassicas.

Watch out for

PigeonsCabbage white caterpillarsAphidsClubrootSlugs

Pick spears from February to May, when the flower buds are well formed but before the yellow flowers open. Snap or cut each shoot 10–15 cm from the tip, taking the central spear first. Side shoots then grow, and picking regularly keeps the plant producing for weeks.

Pick every few days in the peak, as unpicked shoots flower quickly and the plant stops cropping. Cook and eat the spears soon after picking; the sugar content falls fast. The leaves just below the buds are edible and delicious too.

Top tips

• Pick regularly: flowering stops further growth.
• Cut spears at an angle so water does not collect.
• Eat soon after picking.
• Use the young leaves as greens.

Steam or boil the spears for three to four minutes until tender but still bright, or roast them with olive oil and garlic. Serve with hollandaise, add them to stir-fries and pasta, or char them on the barbecue. The purple colour fades to green when cooked.

Fresh spears keep for only three or four days in the fridge in a bag, so eat them promptly. For freezing, blanch the spears for two minutes, chill quickly in cold water, dry them and freeze on trays before bagging. Do not leave harvested spears in a warm kitchen.

Top tips

• Steam for three to four minutes to keep the colour.
• Blanch for two minutes before freezing.
• Eat within days of picking.
• Roast at 200°C with garlic and chilli flakes.