Perennial Broccolis: A Viable Early Crop for Vegetable Farmers in

Broccolitas: The 10 Year Broccoli Wonder
By Jonathan Bates : Food Forest Farm : jonathan@permaculturenursery.com
Sea Kale (Crambe maritima)
Turkish Rocket (Bunias orientalis)
We will discuss their history,
 how to propagate, grow, harvest and market them,
 meet some of their pests,
 and how, like asparagus, they can be row cropped
like a vegetable,

or grown in complex polycultures on “poor” land.
 We’ll also look at other possible new crops.

An Opportunity

Problem... How to increase spring/fall access to
fresh local vegetables in MA, using low cost, low
maintenance techniques?
-solutions seem to be infrastructure or energy or labor
intensive (cold storage, greenhouses, canning, etc).

Solution... Early and late season perennial
vegetables. e.g. Asparagus, sunchokes
-this solution, over time, seems to be a low cost, low
maintenance and low energy approach (combine with
diverse plantings on poor land intensifies these qualities).
What is a broccolita?
The name Meg gave to perennial broccolis
(inspired by the fact that the word ‘broccolini’ is copy righted)
History
Sea kale is an old English vegetable, found growing wild
along the sea coast. It fell out of favor before the
industrial revolution... From the book the Vegetable
Garden, c1885:
“When properly cooked, they preserve all their
firmness, and have a very fine and agreeable
flavour, like that of hazelnuts, with a very slight
amount of bitterness.”
Turkish rocket is a native of West Asia (i.e. Turkey) and
doesn't seem to be as popular in Europe as Sea kale,
but there is this notation from the same book above:
“This plant has been highly spoken of as a kitchengarden plant. It commences to grow very early in
the spring, when other fresh green vegetables are
exceedingly scarce...”
How they Grow
sea kale
Spring early growth, note buds
and ornamental purple blue
foliage (10 yr old plant)
Marketable broccolis,
early to mid-April
Yard filling honey scented
flowers (assuming you don’t
cut all of the broccolis!)
How they Grow
Turkish rocket
April broccolitas, cut and used
like broccoli raab, top 6 to 8
inches, mustardy flavor
Delicious, fresh, mustardy, spring vegetable,
cook with butter, salt and pepper.
Propagation



Sea kale propagated by root
cuttings. Turkish rocket by seed.
I start sea kale in February, inside,
in soil filled flats, planting 3 inch
long root cuttings. Ready to plant
out in May.
Either started by seed they have a
thick seed casing. Must soak,
stratify, remove from casing, or let
rot on soil over winter for best
germination.
Harvest & Markets
Marketing the broccoli shoots to restaurants
Nutrition/ Fodder Options
Bunius orientalis plants are rich in micronutrients.
100 g of dry product contained 21.4 mg of iron, 0.84 mg copper, 2.73 mg manganese, 5 mg
of titanium, .56 of molybdenum, 2 mg of boron. Contains 58 mg of vitamin C.
(Oranges are 53 mg!!!)
As a food its used mainly in fresh form. Can be prepared in salads, vinaigrettes, soups,
seasoning for meat and fish dishes. It can be dried, pickled, salted. This concerns mainly
the leaves, shoots and young stems.
You can pickle roots in grated form, an use them as condiments like horseradish. Dried
powdered roots lose the bitterness and can be used for the preparation of sauces and
condiments.
Green mass in the flowering phase contains dry matter 22-24%
budding stage has 33 mg / kg carotene.
crude protein. The
Almost all kinds of animals, including cattle, pigs and poultry, readily eat herbage at budding
stage.
Biological yield of green mass of 300-600 kg / ha - 2
to 3 times alfalfa.
Non-traditional fodder plants: Bunias orientalis. Karpenko, A. P.;
Vakulenko, A. I.; Matsyna, T. V. Kormovye Kul'tury 1990 No. 6 pp. 16-18
Maintenance


I've experienced growing these plants in most conditions and
they are still growing after 10 years!!!:

moist, dry, hot, cold (zone 5)

clay, loam, sand, compacted urbanite, acid soil

part shade or full sun.
Giving them moist, rich, aerated soil tends to make them grow
more!

They are adapted to root disturbance.

But, there are some pests...
Pests
Pieris brassicae
Row Cropping
Perennial Polycultures
of
Multipurpose Plants
Other potentials...




wild arugula, Diplotaxis tenuifolia
‘Sylvetta’ (Brassicaceae)
water celery, Oenanthe javanica
(Apiaceae)
scorzonera, Scorzonera hispanica
(Asteraceae)
giant orache Atriplex hortensis
(Chenopodioideae)
Wild arugula

Spicy arugula flavor

Easy to grow, clumping

Perennial zone 6

Nicely lobed, adds texture to
salads

Self seeds extremely well

Plant once have forever

Does get leaf miners
Water celery

Grows under Spring snow!

Celery leaf added to salads





Important crop grown in the
tropics
Adapted to water or dry partial
shade.
Effective ground cover
Produces little to no seed,
propagates by runners
No major pests (groundhogs)
Scorzonera






Cook root like parsnip (annual) –
tastes like french fries!
Cook shoot/leaves (perennial) –
glorious nutty vegetable
Beautiful giant dandelion flowers,
insectory
High in inulin (root), a starch for
diabetics
Large seed, easy to collect and
plant out
No major pests
Giant lambsquarters (orache)

Cook like spinach

Easy to grow

Slow to bolt




Probably similar nutrition to
superfood lambs quarters
Large seed, easy to collect and
plant out
Common pests an issue:
aphids, leaf miners, etc.
Not genetically perennial, treat
like self seeding annual
Viable Crop? Who's With Me!
Next Steps:
 Increase production
 Share/sell material for others to try
 Observe plantings, data collection
Harvest the yield
 Market and sell retail, e.g. restaurants
 Evaluate


Maybe write SARE grant for further study
Contact me at
www.PermacultureNursery.com