Brassica oleracea var. italica
Calabrese green broccoli, heading broccoli, large-headed broccoli: this is the original variety, the one that gave the vegetable its name — broccolo, “little sprout” in Italian. Brought from Calabria by Italian migrants, it produces a large, compact central head, then continues to produce side shoots for weeks.
Characteristics:
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Large central head: dark green, compact, and flavorful, followed by side shoots.
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Extended harvest: from June to October, with regrowth after the main cut.
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Easy to grow: less demanding than most other cabbages.
- Old, open-pollinated variety.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: sunny.
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Soil: deep, rich, moist, and well supplied with organic matter. Like all cabbages, it is a heavy feeder: adding well-rotted compost genuinely benefits it. Absolutely avoid growing it where another brassica has grown during the previous three years, because of clubroot.
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Method: sow from April in a nursery bed or in pots, 1 cm deep. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Transplant at the 5- or 6-leaf stage, spacing plants 50 to 60 cm apart. Bury them up to the first leaves and earth up around the base for better anchorage.
Care advice:
- Keep the soil consistently moist: water stress causes broccoli to bolt into flower before it has even formed its head. Mulch generously.
- An insect netting cover placed at planting time prevents cabbage white butterflies and cabbage flies without any treatment.
Harvesting advice:
- Cut the central head when the buds are still tightly closed and dark green, before any yellowing. Leave 15 cm of stem: this is where the side shoots will develop.
- Then harvest these shoots regularly for several weeks. The leaves can also be cooked.
Beneficial companions:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Allow a few late-season shoots to flower: their yellow clusters are highly attractive to pollinators and appear at a time when the vegetable garden offers little.
- Its large foliage covers the soil and shelters ground beetles and beneficial insects.
Uses:
- Steamed, sautéed with garlic, in gratins, in velouté soup, or raw in salads when very young. Peeled stems are excellent too, so do not throw them away.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Allow one plant to flower and then form its seed pods, harvesting them when brown and dry. Be careful: Brassica oleracea varieties cross very easily with one another (cabbages, cauliflowers, and broccoli), so isolate your seed plant. See how to save your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to sow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
The broccoli of origins: one large head, followed by weeks of regrowth.
