Purple Sprouting Broccoli marks the shift to spring 

I still remember, years ago, standing in a Seattle farmers’ market in early March and staring at a stall display. The farm in question was selling two things that day: a subscription to their summer CSA produce box and a massive mound of parsley. That was it, just parsley. 

This time of year brings a distinct dip in local productivity—overwintered veggies are running out of steam (and we’re running out of love for them) while spring crops are still en route. It’s no mistake that the February full moon is sometimes called the Hunger Moon. 

One colorful crop has made inroads in recent years to fill that gap. Meet purple sprouting broccoli, an excellent and attractive winter stalwart, able to withstand freezing temperatures (down to 10° F/-12° C).  

What is Purple Broccoli?

Unlike the green broccoli we know (and some of us love), purple sprouting broccoli looks a little like a carnival crop, producing a smaller, flattish main head and numerous side shoots. The cold temperature brings out the sweetness and the side shoots are particularly tender. Think of it as green broccoli’s younger, flashier sibling.  

A member of the Brassica family—along with cousins cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and kohlrabi—purple sprouting broccoli is sometimes called late- or winter-sprouting broccoli. While it’s easy to think they resemble each other, broccolini is a different cultivar and broccoli rabe a different family entirely (turnips). 

These cole crops thrive in cool weather. Purple sprouting broccoli requires a period of vernalization—6 to 8 weeks of temperatures consistently below 50° F—in order to produce buds. Because of this, and because it requires 180 days to mature, this colorful broccoli is an excellent winter crop and thrives in the Pacific Northwest.  

Joey Staub knows purple sprouting broccoli well. He’s now Product Innovation Manager for Portland-based Organically Grown Company (OGC), but he first encountered purple sprouting as a farm manager of Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, Oregon. In 2010 OGC asked the farm to participate in a program to trial the crop. Those early collaborations were successful and these days OGC works with three different growers to plant 60,000 purple spouting broccoli seedlings each year for harvest in March, April, and May. While exact availability depends on the weather, purple sprouting broccoli is usually in PCC stores from mid-March onward, said produce merchandiser Elliott Lamoureux, sourced from many small growers through OGC. It’s often “the first taste of local spring veg to hit our shelves,” he says. 

Staub remembers the reaction of farmers market customers in those early days when the farm stand first started offering this novel product.  

“It was always something that customers were excited about,” he says. “If you are eating local, you’ve been subsisting on winter squash, storage crops, and kale, so customers were thrilled to have this sweet new vegetable—and it’s absolutely beautiful. You get some variation of color in different varieties, but people were so excited to see it.”   

Having both sold and grown purple spouting broccoli, Staub says, “Timing is essential for the crop. You don’t want it to be too small going into the winter or it won’t put on enough growth, and if it is too big it can be susceptible to frostbite.” OGC’s advice for Northwest growers is to start seed early to mid-July for planting out in mid to late August.  

“It really needs that period of vernalization  to go from a vegetative state to a reproductive state,” Staub explains. The reproductive state is when the plant buds and begins to grow flowers.  

Portland master gardener and cookbook author (most recently of Veggies for Breakfast) Willi Galloway is another fan of purple sprouting broccoli and grows it frequently. 

“I especially like the cultivar ‘Purple Peacock,’ which was developed by Wild Garden seeds and is a cross between purple sprouting broccoli and two kales,” she says. “It is a very edible plant! You can eat the leaves raw and cooked and the broccoli shoots like broccolini.”  

For gardeners, Galloway echoes Staub’s advice to keep your eye on the calendar. “The hardest thing about it is remembering to plant starts in late summer so that you can enjoy it in late winter,” she explains. But the timing is a worthwhile inconvenience for such a great winter crop. “It is quite hardy and doesn’t need to grow under cover,” Galloway explains, “but it won’t hate having a light row cover over it if the gardener feels so inclined.” [Note: Galloway now grows in Portland, whose winter climate is a bit colder than the Seattle area.] 

Purple sprouting broccoli has become such a winter favorite, it now has imitators. Staub says that growers in Arizona and the Southwest are trying to promote a purple baby broccoli they hope will become as popular. This baby broccoli can be grown in successive plantings and will mature fast in the region’s warm weather, it doesn’t need to slow grow all winter.  

“They’re trying to breed a shortcut,” Staub explains, but this imitator doesn’t have the sweetness of the original, flavors coaxed out by cool temperatures and a long maturity schedule. 

This is what makes purple sprouting broccoli such a perfect crop for local gardeners and farmers alike. It takes up residence when garden beds have room to spare and rewards our patience with sweet, tender stems, happy to be pulled just before the lettuces and beans need to go in.  

If you get the timing right, you could have a mostly dormant garden bursting with purple budding shoots this time next year. Until then, there are commercial growers and grocery stores happy to fulfil your desire for a mid-winter bit of sweet, colorful crunch.  

How to grow purple sprouting broccoli

If you want to grow purple sprouting broccoli at home, timing is everything. This crop needs to be started in late summer, to grow through the fall and winter. Aim for starting seeds in July. If germinating indoors, and let the seedlings grow 4-6 inches before transplanting into well-amended soil in a location with full sun. If you can find pre-sprouted seedlings for sale, aim to plan in-ground by mid-August.  

While you will need to provide water through the end of summer, as soon as autumn rains start you can let that precipitation irrigate the plants. In our growing climate (zone 8b), there is little we need to worry about with purple sprouting broccoli through the winter. If big enough, the plants will do well in chill and even a bit of frost and snow (if seeds are started too late, the plants will not achieve the size growth needed for overwintering). Start checking for bud development in late February and early March.  

How to cook purple sprouting broccoli

Purple sprouting broccoli is tender and cooks quickly—a brief sauté, steam or blanch is all that is needed, for 3-4 minutes. (PCC’s Lamoureux says it’s one of his favorite vegetables to throw on the grill.) You can also eat the leaves like kale, even before harvesting flowerets.