Growing purple sprouting broccoli

Are you a broccoli fan? Have you ever tried purple sprouting broccoli? Did you know purple sprouting broccoli is highly nutritious it is lots of vitamin A and C and full of folic acid. You will feel the benefits of eating this type of broccoli. You can grow great crops of purple sprouting broccoli lasting you from autumn all the way to the year after. Here you will learn about growing purple sprouting broccoli.

Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book

Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-

You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.

Purchase Purple Sprouting Broccoli Seeds

Are you looking at trying to grow purple sprouting broccoli? Here we recommend the best variety to try growing at home and on the allotment. You can purchase it directly from Amazon from the link below.

When to sow, plant and harvest purple sprouting broccoli

Planting, sowing and harvesting your purple sprouting broccoli at the right times of the year is important so that you get better crops and harvests. You want to make the most out of your plants. Here we have the dates for doing all the specific tasks with your purple sprouting broccoli.

Please remember these dates all depend on the weather and temperature in the UK where you are based

How to sow purple sprouting broccoli

Sowing purple sprouting broccoli dates all depend on the temperature in your area. You can start them off in March if you live in a warmer area of the Uk but people often start them off towards the end of April beginning of May.

To sow the sprouting broccoli seeds this can be done in a seed tray filled with normal multi-purpose compost. Sprinkle the seeds evenly across the compost. The broccoli seeds are small balls. They are still easy to handle though. Make sure they are spread out in the compost then they will be easier to transplant.

Cover the seeds with compost lightly. Water the seeds but do not drown them. You can now cover them with a seed propagator or cling film to keep them warm and moist this will help with the broccoli seed germination and guarantee better success.

You can now place the seed tray on a windowsill, in a warm greenhouse or polytunnel. Just make sure there is plenty of sunlight.

Once the broccoli seeds start to germinate you can take the cling film off the top of the seed tray for the seeds to grow. Keep them in warm place.

How to plant purple sprouting broccoli

When the purple sprouting broccoli is big enough to handle and strong enough you can now transplant them to individual plant pots to keep growing until the chance of frost has passed.

In June you can now plant the broccoli plants outdoors as the risk of frost should have passed by now. Before planting out you can improve the soil for the broccoli to grow in by adding some well-rotted organic matter and compost to the soil. Make sure you have weeded the area well and got rid of any roots in the soil to prevent more weeds growing back

Just before planting out make sure you have given the plants a good watering this helps the plants take when transplanting. When planting out they require a lot of space to grow. Plant them around 60-70cm apart

How to care for purple sprouting broccoli

Purple sprouting broccoli does not require much care and attention. Water every 10 to 14 days in dry spells. More often in hot weather. You can stake the sprouting broccoli up with canes to hold it up and stop it from falling over.

You can feed the purple broccoli by creating your own feed – this can be done with nettles soaked in water for a few week. You can also feed them with blood, fish and bone pellets or even chicken pellets.

When the middle floret starts to develop you can pinch this out so that the side shoots on the broccoli grow bigger and better.

You can protect your purple sprouting broccoli by placing netting or a fine fleece over it when you plant them. This is because the birds will eat the broccoli plants down to the base especially the pigeons. It will also stop the butterflies from laying there eggs on the leaves and producing caterpillars which will devour them.

How to harvest purple sprouting broccoli

The best bit of growing purple sprouting broccoli is harvesting it when it is ready. So when is purple sprouting broccoli ready to harvest? Depending on the variety you have chosen to grow depends on when you will be harvesting the purple broccoli. You could be harvesting it from late summer through to winter. Most varieties of purple sprouting broccoli will be ready to pick in March – April the following year. So do not expect to be eating it pretty soon after planting. This broccoli takes it’s time to grow. You can find out more about harvesting broccoli here.

Now you know about growing purple sprouting broccoli. If you would like to grow normal broccoli you can find the tips and advice here.