I’ve been really please with the broccoli that I’ve grown this year and last. I’ve concentrated on one variety that can be spring sown, but also overwintered. It’s a variety called “Marathon”, and I started out with some spring (late March) plants that I was harvesting by the early summer. I planted some more in mid-summer and these grew all through the autumn / winter and I’m harvesting now.

I’ve backed these up with some purple sprouting, that looks as if I’ll be able to harvest later on this week, and so I’ll have a pretty good crop of broccoli nearly year round. My plan is to do the same again, and in fact it looks as though the next lot of spring sown plants will be here in the next week to ten days.

Probably the most significant difference between the spring sown and the overwintered plants are that the spring sown varieties, have produced a single large head and then once that has been cut lots of little side heads. The overwintered plants, have only really produced the latter, but they have been prolific so we’ve had lots to eat. Weight for weight I’d estimate it’s about the same, and in fact there’s also quite a bit more green leaves with the overwintered plants, so that adds a bit of variety too.