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| Purple Sprouting Broccoli in Alder Creek Farm Permaculture Garden Photo by Justin Bailie March 2011 |
PURPLE SPROUTING BROCCOLI
Purple Sprouting Broccoli is an extremely cold-hardy, over-wintering British heirloom vegetable that is planted late spring or early summer of one year and produces its tender purple sprouts the following year in early spring.
The advantage of this is having mature plants that are ready to produce a prolific crop at a time when most of the overwintered kales and collards are tatty and wind-damaged or you're sick of eating them.
Just when it seems as if winter will never end, these plants begin to wake up and start growing new leaves in early February (here on the Oregon coast).
In just a few weeks, they send new leafy growth upright, and pale purplish buds appear on loose heads. These buds grow into smallish purple florets which become the first new crop from the broccoli clan to be eaten in spring.
Our farm's location, less than a mile from the wide-open and windy Nehalem Bay on the north coast of Oregon, presents great challenges to wintering-over taller plants.
Plants that would normally be 30" tall are buffeted all winter by gusts of up to 80 mph or more, driving rain and recently, more freezing days than normal.
Experiments with tying each plant with twine to a wooden stake last winter produced stalks badly damaged by constant rubbing. I've resigned myself to allowing the plants to chose their own tendency to lean away from the wind and keep a lower profile without staking. They take up more sideways room but the impressive amount of harvest gleaned from these sturdy survivors more than makes up for their sprawl.
Other advantages to this plant are: the large size of the mature broccoli is difficult for slugs to reach and it bears early enough to avoid much of the damage caused by cabbage moth caterpillars. (I refuse to use Bacillus thuringiensis, also sold as BT, because it indiscriminately targets all larval species including rare butterflies.)
The harvest can be used in the same way as other broccolis. I prefer simple steaming or stir-fry, which turns them dark green. Raw, they hold their gorgeous purple color and add an eye-catching accent to a green salad. Add purplish chive buds later in the spring (see Chives below) for even more sassy salad color!
CHIVES
Chives are one of the most useful of herbs. Small members of the onion family, they have many culinary uses and are excellent for making mulch as they grow prolifically and can quickly recover from being cut off at the ground. Throw into a compost pile, where they will quickly break down, or use directly as a mulch.
In the late fall chives slowly disintegrate into mush and disappear. By late February they are shooting up again and I begin adding them to everything: soups, egg dishes, salads, garnish on baked potatoes and vegetable stir-fries.
In another month, chives will start budding up and the minaret-shaped buds are my favorite edible flower.
I pick and use the buds regularly, both cooked and raw, to keep them producing. When the flowers are so numerous that they start to open fully, I use a few in salads by breaking the large blooms into florets and sprinkle them on top.
When the stalks and flowers are becoming bent and blowsy, they are cut them back to the ground for a new crop. I cut them back two or three times a season and never tire of their delicious mild onion flavor.
Now is a great time for planting them in the garden or putting them in a pot just outside the door. Snip as needed, cutting down low so it will grow back fresh. Water moderately and mulch around the outside edge of the plant.
Place in full to partial-day sun. Plants in shade will become lax and floppy.
Once you plant them, you will always have them!
Purple Sprouting Broccoli is an extremely cold-hardy, over-wintering British heirloom vegetable that is planted late spring or early summer of one year and produces its tender purple sprouts the following year in early spring.
The advantage of this is having mature plants that are ready to produce a prolific crop at a time when most of the overwintered kales and collards are tatty and wind-damaged or you're sick of eating them.
Just when it seems as if winter will never end, these plants begin to wake up and start growing new leaves in early February (here on the Oregon coast).
In just a few weeks, they send new leafy growth upright, and pale purplish buds appear on loose heads. These buds grow into smallish purple florets which become the first new crop from the broccoli clan to be eaten in spring.
Our farm's location, less than a mile from the wide-open and windy Nehalem Bay on the north coast of Oregon, presents great challenges to wintering-over taller plants.
Plants that would normally be 30" tall are buffeted all winter by gusts of up to 80 mph or more, driving rain and recently, more freezing days than normal.
Experiments with tying each plant with twine to a wooden stake last winter produced stalks badly damaged by constant rubbing. I've resigned myself to allowing the plants to chose their own tendency to lean away from the wind and keep a lower profile without staking. They take up more sideways room but the impressive amount of harvest gleaned from these sturdy survivors more than makes up for their sprawl.
Other advantages to this plant are: the large size of the mature broccoli is difficult for slugs to reach and it bears early enough to avoid much of the damage caused by cabbage moth caterpillars. (I refuse to use Bacillus thuringiensis, also sold as BT, because it indiscriminately targets all larval species including rare butterflies.)
The harvest can be used in the same way as other broccolis. I prefer simple steaming or stir-fry, which turns them dark green. Raw, they hold their gorgeous purple color and add an eye-catching accent to a green salad. Add purplish chive buds later in the spring (see Chives below) for even more sassy salad color!
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| Chives with coffee bean mulch and blue bottle hose-guides Alder Creek Farm Permaculture Garden Photo by Justin Bailie March 2011 |
Chives are one of the most useful of herbs. Small members of the onion family, they have many culinary uses and are excellent for making mulch as they grow prolifically and can quickly recover from being cut off at the ground. Throw into a compost pile, where they will quickly break down, or use directly as a mulch.
In the late fall chives slowly disintegrate into mush and disappear. By late February they are shooting up again and I begin adding them to everything: soups, egg dishes, salads, garnish on baked potatoes and vegetable stir-fries.
In another month, chives will start budding up and the minaret-shaped buds are my favorite edible flower.
I pick and use the buds regularly, both cooked and raw, to keep them producing. When the flowers are so numerous that they start to open fully, I use a few in salads by breaking the large blooms into florets and sprinkle them on top.
When the stalks and flowers are becoming bent and blowsy, they are cut them back to the ground for a new crop. I cut them back two or three times a season and never tire of their delicious mild onion flavor.
Now is a great time for planting them in the garden or putting them in a pot just outside the door. Snip as needed, cutting down low so it will grow back fresh. Water moderately and mulch around the outside edge of the plant.
Place in full to partial-day sun. Plants in shade will become lax and floppy.
Once you plant them, you will always have them!
Thanks, Maia!
ReplyDeleteJust when I was fearing Spring might never come, listening to the ceaseless wind, and watching the horizontal rain, you talk of chives and purple broccoli.
So, I'm going to venture out in the storm and see how the chives are coming along....
Sue S