Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Purple sprouting broccoli’s wild florets are the despair of quality contol supervisors across the country. ‘PSB’ is a delicacy that’s equal, if not superior, to asparagus; and it has the great advantage of coming into season from January to May, when other home-grown greens are in short supply. At the height of the season, in March and April, we make no apologies for including it in virtually every veg box and every meal in the Field Kitchen.

For most people, broccoli has come to mean Calabrese: the chunkier, more uniform variety from Calabria in southern Italy. Purple sprouting broccoli is less highly bred, more winter hardy and has much more flavour. There are now varieties which will crop through the summer and autumn but at the time of writing we are sticking to the traditional late winter and spring varieties. The varieties we grow come mostly from Tozer, one of the last independent English seed producers. We start the season with Rudolf, then move on to Redhead and Red spear. There is always a glut in late March and April, as the highest-yielding Claret comes into season. To my great delight, such is the popularity of purple sprouting broccoli with our customers that over the last few years we’ve been trying to breed our own variety to allow us to continue picking a little later into the spring ‘hungry gap’.