Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi,
I see from other sites that you should snap off the head of PSB to get the side shoots to develop - when do you do this? I still have nothing to harvest so was wondering should I wait a bit longer or force it into action.

Hilary

Hi Hilary,
With PSB you will have the main terminal floret appear and as soon as you see fit you should remove this. It can then take a month to five weeks for the plant to begin to produce all the side shoots and then you are in business.
The more you pick the more you get. If you see any going up to actually flower remove these pronto because once a plant goes up to flower production of more shoots will cease.
This wonderful vegetable is my absolute favourite.
Do you know that by sowing the newish Summer PSB's as well as the conventional varieties you can have PSB almost the entire year round.
With the summer varieties you can sow in succession from February until at least June. The case I make is that we mainly all grow runner beans and the summer PSB makes a very welcome break from beans because I do not know how you feel but I can get a bit fed-up with beans, beans and more beans. Luckily Beans are my second favourite. Mind you I have been known to have both on the plate at the same time!
JB.

Thanks JB,
Will remove the heads asap since I was hoping to be picking by now. I have for the first time this year sown white SB for the summer since I hve discovered it as one of the veggies that is soo much better than the shop version.

Hilary

Hi Hilary,
There are two types of WSB the early and the late (all very inspiring)
But there are two named varieties White Eye and White Star which are again early and late that are improved seed stock and make sturdier plants and improve cropping. I grow those instead of Cauliflowers and you get far more meals out of WSB than any cauliflower.
JB.

I will look out for them - I agree with you re the caulifowers -

Hilary

Interesting to read about the summer version, they the plants the same size a the winter sort, as I only have a limited amount of space on my plot.
Any other good SSB they you would suggest?

All the PSB on mine and neighbouring allotments is quite dead after this winter. I've never known this before. A lot of kale is dead, too, although mainly it is the fate of the black kale rather than the curly sort, which is always reliable. I understand that most of the PSB in Lincolnshire has suffered. It's going to be expensive to buy. Spring won't be the same this year without it. I'm not willing to buy it in the shops: not the same, somehow.

Hi Skinny_bum,
The Summer varieties of PSB maybe just a tad smaller but not that much and the yields are very good.
Felix,
Sad to hear about you PSB. Here we suffered -18C during the cold weather and we lost about that in line with the Lincolnshire farmers who lost approx 40%. It all looked very sick after the cold but has made a miraculous recovery because I though we were going to lose the lot.
Generally what I see for sale in the Supermarkets is well past it's picking time and have actually seen some in flower within the packet!
JB.

It worked to save my autumn planted beans they are doing realy well now so maybe I will make an enviromesh tent to protect my winter broccoli next autumn, it keeps the snow off the plants and snow tends to slide down the sides of a tent shape.

Hi NB,
It is not the snow that buggers-up the plants it is the prolonged frozen stems. With the Brussels Sprouts they looked in good fettle but the Sprouts themselves had begin to rot in the centre. The only one that survived intact was the February cropping variety (who's name I cannot recall just at present) which is still cropping.
JB.
PS Severn Hills is the variety.

I have a few early PSB that have side shoots but also a small central shoot. Shoot I whip out the central shoot now?

Hi Toffeeman,
The prime floret should be removed as soon as possible to get the full potential from the crop.
There are also certain types of F1 Calabrese that after the head is cut will, after a few weeks, send out side shoots that to my way of thinking are better tasting than the Calabrese main head itself. I do not grow F1 Calabrese as I believe it to be totally devoid of taste.
If you can find the seed of an open pollinated variety of Calabrese is as it was originally before the hybridisers got to work which is delicious because it is like a green type of PSB.
JB.

thanks

We only had one plant of PSB survive the Winter - Cardinal, and we are having a meal off it today. Also only one Russian Kale and one Cauliflower St George, lost all Pentland Brig and Black Kale. Strangely all three varieties of Brussels Sprouts (Bridge, Cromwell, Trafalgar) carried on and still have a few left. I always stake the Sprouts and am wondering if that would have helped, the PSB was bent by the snow and I wonder if it cracked and let the frost in, the survivor was against the wind break netting.