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Grow to eat: how to get started with bountiful brassicas

Brussels sprouts 'Rubine' - http://www.gapphotos.com
Brussels sprouts 'Rubine' - http://www.gapphotos.com

Prep your brassica bed this weekend for nutritious veg later in the year.

Few plants provide so much food for so little time and effort. Starting broccoli and cabbage from seed is easy: sow into individual pots in a cold frame or a seed bed and grow seedlings to a good size (i.e. six to eight leaves) before planting out. This helps reduce the effects of club root – a fungal disease of brassicas – if you have it in your soil. 

Brassicas require watering and fertilising to grow well but I find a good mulch of rotted manure now, a month or two before planting out, does most of the job. And while brassicas take up a lot of space – at least 28 x 28in (70 x 70cm) per plant – a good option is to select those that crop for a long time.

cabbage white butterfly  - Credit: David Burton/Alamy 
Cabbage white butterflies are a pest of brassicas Credit: David Burton/Alamy

You can pick young, sweet leaves of kale and more will grow for months. Try kale ‘Dwarf Green Curled’ for compact plants or ‘Scarlet’ for purple leaves (mr-fothergills.co.uk). 

I can’t believe I’m typing this but Brussels sprouts have become one of my favourite vegetables. Six plants, usually of ‘Crispus F1’, feed us all winter and this year I’m trying heirloom ‘Rubine’ for red sprouts (dobies.co.uk). Chopping and frying, rather than boiling, is the key to sweeter flavour. Sprouting broccoli ‘Early Purple’ (unwins.co.uk) is another winner, supplying perfect spears for more than a month from March. 

Cabbage white butterflies, snails and pigeons love brassicas, but horticultural netting (shop.wondermesh.co.uk) should keep them at bay. Peg securely over the plants, propped on bamboo canes topped with upturned bottles. 

Of course, I once found three butterflies having a party inside the net… 

Find Jack’s Garden Blog of the Year at jackwallington.com. Follow him on Twitter  @jackwallington and Instagram @jackjjw