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Seed for BROCCOLI or CALABRESE, & RAPINI There's a reasonable sort of logic to us grouping these together - they're all brassicas and are mostly eaten cooked. And we couldn't think which categories they would fit in otherwise! Anyways, these are all great and easy varieties that should give you a good crop with no fuss. Just in case you might get confused as to when to sow and harvest, so we've added a new timetable under each crop. We hope this helps. = main sowing = alternative sowing or extensions ~ HEADING BROCCOLI or CALABRESE~ This year we are offering two strains of Broccoli that grow at different rates. Often seed catalogues don't make a distinction between them, which is why you sometimes find your plants heading when least expected! However, we hope that our explanation of planting times should make things easy.   Green Heading Calabrese This is what we would consider 'normal' broccoli, taking about 120 days from planting out to make large green heads. We recommend this for your maincrop sowing. It is for successional sowing from the end of March to July. The heads will then be ready for harvest from the end of August onwards. Normal 120-day heading broccoli. Order BrGH - 2g (lots and lots of seed - hundreds!) £1.50   Quick Heading Calabrese This slightly unusual variety makes heads about 60-80 days after planting out. The plants will be a lot younger when they head up, so the heads will of course be rather smaller - but it can be very useful for getting in an extra crop. There are two possibilities for sowing: You should start it from mid-March either in situ, or in blocks for transplanting out - and should then get an extra-early crop of heads in May/June. Or, as long as the winter is not too severe, it can be sown in late August or September in an unheated greenhouse or polytunnel, to give you a very early crop at the start of the following year. Of course, in reality, experienced gardeners will know that with all the brassica family, it can - to be honest - be a bit random when they do actually head up, as it depends so much upon temperature and daylength when they are small. But by sowing this one as well as the 'normal' type, you will extend your season, whenever that turns out to be! 'Quick' 60 day heading broccoli. Order BrQH - 2g (lots and lots of seed - hundreds!) £1.25   ~ Seed for PURPLE SPROUTING BROCCOLI ~ Earlier Purple Sprouting Broccoli Should really need no introduction, but this makes a profusion of small purple flower sprouts in spring when fresh veg are most valued. This is the earlier type of Sprouting Broccoli that usually comes ready at the start of March. The nice big leaves are good to eat too, much as you would cook with cauliflower leaves. Order BrEP - (about 400 seed) [CO2] £1.59 Later Purple Sprouting Broccoli This is - as you might perhaps have guessed - the slightly later type of Sprouting Broccoli that usually comes ready a couple of weeks later when the Early has finished. If you have room to grow both varieties, about 10 plants of each will give you an good supply of sprouting broccoli for weeks and weeks! Order BrLP - (about 300 seed ) £1.29   ~ RAPINI (BROCCOLI RAAB) ~ Unknown in the UK but easy to grow and loved on the continent. We introduced this in 2003 and it was a huge success. Everyone seemed to like it! Raab is related to turnip - but produces delicious sprouts like a slightly spicy flavoured sprouting broccoli. Its real value is a harvest in late summer & autumn when ordinary broccoli isn't available, but is also great as a very early spring crop in a polytunnel. Thinnings are excellent in salads or stirfries. Cima Di Rapa 'San Marzano' (60 days) Quick growing plants that reach about 1 ft tall, making green sprouts used just like sprouting broccoli – but much quicker and easier to grow.  Sow early spring under cover, or mid to late summer for harvest in 50-60 days. Spicy maincrop 'broccoli' derived from the Turnip family. Nice raw in salads or cooked. WEB SPECIAL OFFER! We packed up too much, and have loads of spare packets from 2009. It is still great seed, and germinates well, but it has 'packed for 2009' on the packets. We want to shift it so we can pack up this years' seed. So you can have it here for the bargain price of 79p: Order BrSM - 2g seed (lots!) £0.79 (seed from 2009, but really fine) Cima Di Rapa (40 day strain) A smaller Raab that comes very, very early. Use the thinnings in salads at the start of the season, and then cooked as sprouts & leaves later on. Spicy first-early 'broccoli' derived from the Turnip family. Nice raw in salads or cooked. Order BrC4 - 2g seed (lots!) £1.58 TWO SOWING PERIODS: Sow in March under cover, or mid to late summer. Harvest 40 days after sowing. "Kailaan" stem broccoli This is a useful & very easily grown green we are adding to the catalogue this year. Kailaan is from China and Japan, and it's a similar plant to our normal broccoli and calabrese, in that it has been bred for its unusual flower shoot shape. The difference is that this has been selected for juicy, succulent thick stems rather than huge buds. It can be picked small (20 - 30 days old), taking whole plants at a time. Or you just leave it to grow large (about 60 - 70 days), in which case you can get 3 cuts from it: take the main stem and it will grow new ones from the side-shoots. This is a really useful vegetable that can be sown in mid-summer or early spring to give a quick yield of juicy shoots that are cooked and used just like calabrese. Order OvKL - approx 300 seed £1.49 Saving Vegetable Brassica Seed: We would really like to encourage you to have a go at saving seed from brassica family - that's the cabbages, kales, oriental vegetables, broccoli and turnip family. We know many of you save obvious ones like tomato and lettuce seed, but we've noticed that in the past people shied away from doing the biennial vegetables (plants that flower in their second year). More people are saving brassica seed now - and we'd like to encourage you to try it too: its incredibly easy, and you get so much seed, you'll have loads to give away. There's really no need for example to buy Kale seed from us every year at all. You just set aside a patch of good kale plants, and let them flower, making sure that you've got a reasonable number, that they are healthy, and that no other sorts are flowering nearby that might cross with them. You'll get lots of seeds in August.   Here's Kate processing some Pak Choi. You do need to make sure they aren't crossed with anything, as many of the brassicas (cabbages, cauliflowers etc) will cross with each other very readily. Flower stalks from a good-sized population are hung up to dry, then broken open over a bowl (or old baby bath in this case!). The bits of pod are screened out with a sieve or a soil riddle - but you can instead winnow them off in a breeze pretty easily if you prefer. Step-by-step instructions are here on our new brassica-seed-processing page. And of course, seed-saving is only possible because these are all real, non-hybrid varieties. It's pretty foolproof - why not give it a go?