How many autumn spear broccoli....

[chrissie the chippy]

do you think I need for me and my 2 children (no one else eats it ), it is the first year I have grown sprouting broccoli, so not sure how many plants I will need. Thanks to the slugs, I only have 3 purple.... but about 15 of the autumn variety.

I'll swap what I don't need on freecycle Already agreed to sacrafice some for some aubergine and capsicum pepper plants none of mine grew

thank you, chrissie x

[Two_Sheds]

I had about 6 plants this year, and they cropped all at once, for about 3 weeks. So we 2 were eating broccoli at every meal !

I tried freezing it, but it disintegrated into green dust.

[chrissie the chippy]

Thank you two sheds

I was hoping to be super organised (here's hoping! lol) and make some sort of broccoli soup to freeze if we had a glut maybe?

I think 3 of each may be ok then?

[Two_Sheds]

Soup would freeze OK I should think.
Try 3 of each, and then adjust for next year. It's so hard to tell how much broccoli a person can eat.

[Farmer_Gyles]

only me and my son here, so only 2 mouths to feed - we love broccoli - we're growing loads of several varieties of broccoli/calabrese - got no idea how much we'll need, but aiming to have fresh broccoli available several months of the year and freeze surplus for the rest of the year

varieties i have are:
broccoli green magic - sow feb onwards, harvest jun-aug
calabrese belstar - sow april onwards, harvest june-oct
calabrese sakura - sow apr onwards, harvest jul-sep
broccoli autumn spear - sow apr, harvest sep-nov
PSB late - sow mar, harvest dec-feb
PSB rudolph - sow apr, havest jan-mar

in theory we should have fresh broccoli/calabrese 10 months of the year
was ill in feb/mar so didn't sow the early sowings as early as i could have, so won't work quite to plan - no broccoli for another couple of months yet
most of the autumn spear seedlings died off in the greenhouse on a hot day, but got plenty of the others - just need to remember what i plant out and where .......
some that was planted out a while back is already sprouting - not sure which one it is but looks kinda purple-ish ......

[butter fingers]

same here i have planted tons,
i mean must be about 50 calabreese and around 20 broccoli as i found these harder to grow, and cabbages about 50.
i assumed that i would be able to freeze all my surplus , so looks like i could be in with a problem

[chrissie the chippy]

I've decided to keep 6 for this year (I've got my 80 day ones to sow that were free in the mag too ) and I've managed to swap all of the others via freecycle

I now have 3 aubergine plants, 3 capsicum peppers, a cucumber plant, a courgette plant and a chilli pepper plant too

Might be worth a go butter fingers!! Hoping on some more peppers, aubergines and rubarb for the rest of my extra cabbages.

Very impressive list farmer Gyles! I'd love to give the rudolf broccoli a go! Will definately be on my list next year.

[helanuels]

To freeze broccoli I think you have to blanch in boiling water first.... check it out online? It's what my mum has always done anyway. Hx