I drove through the Vale of Evesham today and passed fields of Purple Sprouting Broccoli being picked. The plants looked less than 50cm high with lots of very large spears. Every year my plants are well over double this size with fewer spears - what are the commercial growers doing that I'm not? How do I grow shorter plants with more spears? I grow on heavy clay and love eating PSB at this time of year.....
Maybe they are just planting later in the season
A few years ago 3 or 4 of my PSB plants got briefly attacked by pigeons, about a month or two after planting out, and the growing point of each was nipped out.
I managed to prevent any further damage and these plants thrived, and produced much better crops than those that haven't been attacked.
By "stopping" the plants when they were about 15cm tall, it allowed about 3/5 side shoots to develop from and early age to produce a shorter plant with multiple heads which gave a fantastic yield.
I now do this as a normal technique.
I'm not saying that commercial growers do it!
They are probably using a specific variety, and I wouldn't know what it was.
Could it be that they are planted deeper?, closer together, or grown "fast & furiously" to get another crop on the ground? I'm going to research and may report.
I could certainly dowith a shorter variety- mine always fall over (yes, I know I should stake them but..!)
Many tall veg have been "bred" to be smaller... peas are the obvious ones I don't know of any commercial PSB that stay small but to ease mechanical picking and so on it wouldn't surprise me if they exist, :wave:
Thanks for your comments. I'll try a different approach next year. They were picking spears by hand - must be backbreaking work - and the plants were very close to the ground with little stalk if that helps.
I have investigated finding a shorter one with no real luck.
However I do know that the white ones tend to be a bit smaller and I think they taste better too. White Star and White Eye are the ones I have grown but here may be more. I think Star follows Eye for maturity. XX Jeannine
Commercial growers often have access to varieties that the public don't have, plus their plants could have been sprayed with a dwarfing agent.
Only a thought!
My PSB is very short this year. Normally I sow in spring, plant out in summer in my veggie plot which is on the north side of the house so gets no direct sun after mid October .and then watch it get killed off by heavy frosts or blown to bits by gales. This year I decided to plant it out in a sunnier bed, open to full sun even in winter and with some wind protection. However that bed was busy till late summer so the PSBs spent a lot longer in 4" pots and this checked their growth.
It's only in the last few days that they've started producing their crops with several good shoots on very short plants so maybe it's the stress that did it. We do have very fertile, alkaline loam but this bed is less alkaline and has some clay plus years of mulching with garden compost.