When I started buying seeds and seedlings for the veg garden earlier in the year I decided that I wanted different varieties than the normal things you usually get at the shop. To that end I have collected things like both red and purple carrots, green grape tomatoes, red spring onion and golden beetroot among others.
Ages ago I also planted some purple sprouting broccoli. It has done one thing really well, sprouted.
The plants are thigh-high with beautiful big green leaves. Unfortunately, their sprouty green-ness had gone on for so long I wondered if anyone had told them that they were supposed to do anything else!
The other day I rearranged the tag on their row and they must have finally read it. I was very excited to see that over the next few days they all managed to summon up some of the ‘purple’ and ‘broccoli’ part of their name. Yippee!
If only some of the other colourful things were ready for picking, now that would be an interesting looking dinner plate. 😀
More interesting than the green variety!
Buried words and Bushwa. 
Hope it tastes the same! But when do you pick them, is your winter not approaching too? Or is that the time for harvest when it’s cooler?
FM
The kids had some in their dinner the other day and said it tasted “just like broccoli!” so I guess the purple-ness doesn’t taste. 🙂
Not winter here, summer is fast approaching if the 28deg day we just had is anything to go by….
Broccoli can be an all year veg here but these guys were planted a little late in winter and have lingered on so long they are now summer veg!
It’s really good for you too. According to the ‘Eat the Seasons’ website:
‘Purple sprouting broccoli contains the phytochemical sulphoraphane (thought to help prevent cancer) and may provide resistance against heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. It is packed with vitamin C and is a good source of caretenoids, iron, folic acid, calcium, fibre and vitamin A.’
What a winner!
Now you’ve made me even more intent in saving some seeds from them. 🙂
I know that a lot of the heirloom type veg have higher levels of the good stuff than the generic ones we get in the supermarkets, all the more reason to grow them I think. Of course those purple carrots wreck your benchtop or chopping board if you don’t wipe the juice up quickly!
The trouble with saving the seed of brassicas is that they are promiscuous, so often don’t come true. There’s some good advice here: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html
Thank you for the link. I have only recently started trying to save seeds so my efforts are a bit hit and miss. 🙂 oh well, I don’t mind things going wrong, and the online Diggers shop is always there to save the day when I need to plant something that will actually work! 😉
Wow, that looks amazing, and sounds really tasty as well. Lets hope you can grow some more and continued enjoying it.
Even though I knew it would be purple I was still amazed when it came up! I really hope they all end up with huge heads, and that I can get some more next time! 🙂
Its a great colour, brilliant!
Excellent picture. I’ve never seen purple broccoli. We stick with the green stuff here, and then only grudgingly.
Don’t think I am a happy veg eater!
I love growing it, the eating though….. Bleh.
Fresh corn is the only thing I consume without complaint. I know my greens (or purples!) are good for me (and the family) and that is the only reason I am so enthusiastic about them! Growing different ones is probably my way of protesting against the ‘ol meat and three veg dinner everyone was bought up with. 😉
My boys rarely get a cooked veg though, when they were small and I was trying to get them to eat their veg I used to just give them everything raw so it never got cold or soggy and disgusting. Now they are so used to raw veg that is still what they get! Number 1 was pinching raw silverbeet while I was chopping it the other day and was happy. Strange kid. 🙂
I don’t know if y’all grow a lot tomatoes down there, but there’s nothing better to me than a home-grown ‘mater. Corn is a close second, however. Yours may be the first kid happy about raw silverbeet being on the menu. 😉
With hot summers and nothing but salads on the menu I think there is some kind of law here about having a veg garden and not putting tomatoes in…. 😉
I’ve got my hopes pinned on the six different kinds I’ve planted, green, striped, orange, black, cherry, and plain old red ones. Hopefully our summer salads will be colourful and delicious but the chooks and the dog will be happy anyway, they love tomatoes so anything horrible to us will still be eaten. 🙂
Hang the broccoli, I could just eat the photo! Were pests a problem? I have only “grown” broccoli once. First the cabbage moth. Caterpillars munched on the leaves and then the aphids feasted on the heads. 😦
They look fantastic don’t they? 🙂
Pests weren’t a problem, I think my lax planting schedule meant that they were delicious for bugs at the time all the bugs were staying home. 🙂
Damn those critters who ate all of your brocs. Aphids eat our roses but we are not huge fans of those particular plants so they are pretty much left to munch in peace. Fortunately they seem to be sticking to the same veg-free section of the garden.
I am engaged in a war with snails and slugs at the moment, I know I won’t win but I can tell I have made huge inroads into their numbers as it is getting harder to find any to feed to the chooks.
The last few days have seen a cloud of cabbage white butterflies descend on the garden though, eeek! I’m sure the next battle will commence in a few days. The chooks love a grub though, and the part of the veg garden the purple brocs are living in is right within flicking distance. 😀
I love the rainbow varieties of plants – purple broccoli – yum, I would like that. It would laso look nice in a jug on the kitchen bench. The G.O. thinks I’m mad but sometimes I just need broccolini, which seeing as it’s only me who eats it I can justify the extragavance vs cheaper broccoli.
I love purple potatoes, the G.O. isn’t fussed but buying the heirloom carrots of various colours and baking them got him to eat and enjoy them. And we love the mixed heirloom tomatoes, which I afford by selecting the best ones from the seconds baskets, otherwise they’re $16.99 per kg. Oh how I envy your garden 🙂
Your purple potato love reminded me that I planted some red potatoes and to try and one up me the Man planted a big bed of blue potatoes. I am dying to see if they have all grown properly!
The unusual tomatoes are wonderful but I agree, it is too expensive to buy them regularly. I did get a packet of mixed heirloom tomato seeds from the Diggers and I am dying to see what kind the few seedlings that have come up will turn out to be. I also bought a Tigerella seedling that is slowly growing out the front. I had one years ago and just loved the stripy fruit.
The Man wasn’t too fussed by the strangely coloured things at the start either but the kids loved them. Now I think he would be disappointed if we only had generic veg going out there. 🙂
I can imagine that your TA garden will be full of the weird and wonderful once you get up there for good. 🙂
I think your blue potatoes are my purple ones 🙂
I want to grown heirloom stuff too… I couldn’t believe the difference in the carrots to the crappy supermarket versions. I have dreams of climbing spinach, beans and cucumbers as we don’t have a lot of room but plenty of people over the years have done big things with small spaces, and it will mean little or no lawn for the G:O. to mow. He’s not sure yet if he’s happy about that or not 😉
What did I say about your gardening skills improving! Your purple broccoli looks like a bunch of flowers – terrific. 🙂
Thank you. My gardening skills still need to get better though, I am still battling with some darn Mexican climbing mini cucumber seeds (apparently they taste like gherkin). They just lie about in lovely seed raising mix getting watered and do nothing at all! Aargh! 🙂
The purple broc do look like nice flowers though, if there were enough of them I would put some in a vase, although the kids would just think I was going strange! 😉
Oh very nice! I think your broccoli has been reading the same thing as my artichokes as I now have two, ready to pick. 🙂 Plus I’ve got some homegrown leeks and tomorrow I’m going to dig up most of the parsnip to see if there’s anything down there. Love this time of year.
Leeks! One thing I wanted to plant but kept forgetting. The warmth and wetness has been great for the veg hasn’t it? I love this time of year too. Warm enough for the kids and I to be at the pool after school and then walk out to the car in the freezing rain. Lovely. 😀
lmao – just took Mogi out for her night time pee walk and was shocked by just how cold that rain is.
Re the leeks, I had them growing in a pot on my deck. It was a big pot but obviously not big enough because they looked like anaemic spring onions. Since planting them out in the garden they have literally quadrupled in size. The same happened with my celery. Clearly some vegies like to be ‘free’. 🙂