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DELIVERY INFO: We are now shipping out Seed Potatoes – new potato orders will be shipped within 3 working days. Pre-Orders for Spring plants will be shipped from late April onwards - see FAQs
Purple Sprouting Broccoli – Early
(10 Plug Plants)
Ready-to-plant organic plugs
Good for raised beds
Plant from spring to early autumn
Delivery in Spring 2025
£5.99
Easy to grow, beautiful colour and fantastic flavour
An extremely healthy and tasty vegetable that is so much more flavoursome when harvested and eaten fresh from your own garden. This variety is great to plant in spring/summer for a harvest between February and May, when there’s not much else to harvest! Growing from our plug plants is very easy – just pop them in your veg plot when your plants arrive and keep them well watered – a complete growing guide is provided with every plant delivery.
Number of plants: 10 plug plants
Variety: Early (organic*)
In the kitchen: Packed full of flavour when lightly steamed, stir-fried or boiled in just a few minutes so that the florets become tender. Drizzle with melted butter and lemon juice to make a delicious side dish.
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[blogtitle] => More About Growing Broccoli
[blogintro] => Broccoli is a brassica, and has all the same needs as other members of the brassica family, like cabbages, kale and cauliflower. The articles below will help you get started.
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[post_content] => For those of you keen to plan for a crop of year round cabbages, kale, broccoli and cauliflower, here's a quick guide of when to plant and when to harvest... this is a rough guide only and will depend on how warm/cold/rainy/frosty/snowy it is during the growing season!!
Our current brassica plants will be available until early August, then we will have a new batch of autumn brassica plants available for despatch in September and October.
[post_title] => A Brassica Planting & Harvesting Calendar
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[post_content] => Once the leader spear of broccoli has grown you can harvest it. After that, all the other sprouts will start appearing in quick succession. So, if you're growing this yummy veg in your garden, then don't panic if it looks like it's only growing one lonely little broccoli spear!
The way broccoli grows is to form a broccoli head at the top of the plant, and then to grow a series of broccoli spears from sideshoots. So, to harvest it, use a pair of secateurs or a sharp knife to cut off the first broccoli head that appears. Do this while the broccoli is still quite firm, before it opens into flower.
The plant will then start to produce lots of sideshoots. As they reach a harvestable size in the following days, cut them off, including about 10cm of stalk. Again, make sure you harvest them before they flower to keep the plant productive (you can always store them in the fridge for a few days if you don't want to eat them immediately). You should get a good harvest for a few weeks.
Top tip - if you have had problems with caterpillars, and you're worried a few may be hiding in the florets you can soak them in a bowl of warm water with a splash of white vinegar for 5-10 minutes before cooking. Any caterpillars hiding in the broccoli will float to the surface and you can cook your broccoli in confidence, and no, it won't make your broccoli taste horribly vinegary!
[post_title] => How to harvest purple sprouting broccoli
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[post_content] => Brassicas need to be protected from pigeons and cabbage white butterflies, and the easiest way to do this is to build a simple netted brassica cage. You can make your own hoop frame quite easily and it won't take long...
All you need is a few equal lengths of old hosepipe measuring around 100-130cm (we've used an old drip hose) and a few short lengths of bamboo, approx 40-50cm long.
Simply push two bamboo lengths halfway into the soil on either side of the row of plants you wish to cover (about 2 foot apart should be fine, but play around with distances to suit your plot). These will form the base of the hoop, holding it steady. Now thread the hose pipe onto the bamboo at each end, pushing it right down to the soil if you can, to make the hoop. Repeat this at 2-3 foot intervals as pictured.
Once you've got your frames in place, you can cover them with a sheet of horticultural fleece or netting to protect plants from pests. Be sure to secure the cover to the ground - you can use heavy stones.
What to do if you don't have hosepipe? Don't worry, you can make some nifty net supports instead - Find some old jam jars or beer bottles, upturn them and place over the top of 1.3m high bamboo canes. Push the canes into the soil at intervals along the sides and middle of the brassica patch, then you can drape the netting over the top and secure at the sides.
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More About Growing Broccoli
Broccoli is a brassica, and has all the same needs as other members of the brassica family, like cabbages, kale and cauliflower. The articles below will help you get started.
For those of you keen to plan for a crop of year round cabbages, kale, broccoli and cauliflower, here’s a quick guide of when to plant and when to harvest…...
Once the leader spear of broccoli has grown you can harvest it. After that, all the other sprouts will start appearing in quick succession. So, if you’re growing this yummy...
Brassicas need to be protected from pigeons and cabbage white butterflies, and the easiest way to do this is to build a simple netted brassica cage. You can make your...
Just received the order of plug plants – best quality I have ever had. Will plant them at the weekend and look forward to cropping them.
C.F
“”
So many ideas and prompts on what to do and when. I remember learning so much from my grandad about growing, the weekly ideas is like having a perpetual grandad!
B. K.
“”
Thanks for yet another excellent newsletter – always a welcome visitor to an often tiresome inbox!
