Our favourite vegetable is the Romanesco - the head is a delicate shade of almost lime green, and grows in the most beautiful whorled form.   It has a superb fresh flavour!

Broccolis tend to grow one main head.   When that's been cut, it throws a whole lot of side heads - the original cut-and-come-again; keep harvesting the side heads, but don't strip the plant completely.   (By contrast, cauliflowers grow one head only.)

There are three main types

• Purple Sprouting - the hardiest and easiest to overwinter; cook them and they turn green (sadly!)
• White Sprouting produces small cauliflower-like spears.
• Calabrese - a much more delicate crop, producing green heads from August until the first frosts.   Romanesco (in the same section in the seed catalogues) is a lot hardier, and produces heads at least until mid-November, sometimes even February.

Growing Tips

• Broccoli needs a soil dug over and manured the previous autumn, and allowed to consolidate.   Lime if necessary in winter.   Don't loosen the soil again in spring.
• Select varieties to get a spread of autumn green broccoli, and early and late sprouting crops in the spring.
• I sow seed thinly in shallow drills 6 inches apart, directly in a seed bed.   (They can also be started in seed trays inside - but this hasn't worked for me; I don't have good enough light, and they didn't like the shock of being moved to a cold windy allotment!)
• Protect by covering with fleece or enviromesh tunnel.
• Thin the seedlings to about 3 inches apart.
• When they are 3 inches high, they are ready to transplant.   Water the night before.   Pop the seedlings into holes, so the lower leaves are just above soil level, and water generously
  • 12 inches apart for green broccolis,
  • 18 inches apart for sprouting broccolis,
• It may be worth planting them into a furrow about 4 inches deep, and earthing up the plants as they mature; this will help the plants stay stable, and encourage them to grow larger root systems.
• Protect from pigeons by weaving string across and along the bed.
• Water if the weather is dry.   Applying some liquid feed is a good idea as the heads begin to mature.
• Harvest when the spears are well formed, before the flower buds open.   Snap off the main spears first, to encourage side shoots to form.   Keep picking these, but don't strip a plant completely.
• When the plant is finished, compost any green "stuff"; remove and burn the root balls (putting the roots in a compost heap is a recipe for problems with club-root).
• and deal with pests!

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Storing and Uses

I cut Romanesco heads into florets, blanch for a couple of minutes, and open freeze them - and store in plastoic bags for Christmas!

With the flavour and texture of the fresh broccolis so superb, it is worth making the extra effort to stand the florets, stalk down, in an inch or two of boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes; keep the lid on.   The tougher stalks cook well, and the gentler heads steam delicately.   They will need no more than a dressing of olive oil (with or without a squeeze of lemon juice), or butter.

Or replace the cauliflower in Cauliflower Cheese!

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