Welcome to jACKrABBIT! Here you can buy seeds for growing your own produce and ingredients for cooking and baking, you can find recipes for everyday and for preserving home-grown food and find activities and ideas for getting you and your children out of doors and enjoying nature. We also sell native wildflower seeds to encourage those important bees and butterflies into your garden.

'Grow Your Own' Broccoli and Calabrese*

The broccoli that is bought in the supermarket is calabrese, one of three types of broccoli, the other two being purple and white sprouting. Calabrese is harvested in the autumn and the sprouting varieties are overwintered and harvested in the spring. There are some sprouting varieties that have now been develped for summer and autumn harvesting. Calabrese produces one large head, whilst the sprouting varieties produce a number of smaller ones; the heads are actually the flowers in curled up casings.

PURPLE SPROUTING BROCCOLI MIX
These seeds are a selection of four modern purple sprouting varieties, selected to give top quality spears from February to May.
£1.55 per pack (app. 200 seeds)

CALABRESE, Marathon F1
This is a reliable and good sized variety with excellent flavour. Once you harvest the main head, you should leave the plant in the ground as it produces more spears that can also be harvested.
£1.69 per pack (app. 50 seeds)




GROW BROCCOLI AND CALABRESE
Preparation
These plants need fertile, well drained and firm soil.
Sowing: Mar-Jun
Sow outdoors thinly 1cm deep in rows 15cm apart in seed beds or large trays (sow calabrese where you want it to grow as it does not move well). Thin plants to about 7cm apart. When the plants are about 10-15cm move to the final position leaving about 45cm between plants (allow same space between calabrese). Plants can be sown early in the season indoors, hardening off for 10 days before planting out when the risk of frost has passed, but I find that outdoor sowing is more successful.
Growing and Harvesting
Water well in dry weather and mulch plants in the summer. You can also feed in the summer if desired. Harvest the head and spears when they are well formed, but before the flowers open. Calabrese will be ready to harvest by about 12 weeks, and sprouting broccoli by about 40-45 weeks.