Month: May 2012

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workday 2 at our shared allotment

We had another productive day and an enjoyable shared lunch.

The allotment is coming on very well, though there is still much to do.  During the session  Katie 1 and Katie 2 helped, and me and my Rosie (4) and Nick and Ivar.  It was a bit hot (!) but luckily we were able to shelter in the shade under the neighbour’s fruit trees at lunchtime.

stroud permaculture group shared allotment our second workday
The front half of the allotment is now quite tidy, but the back half (not shown) still needs a lot of work.  Hopefully we can have another session at it soon and some more people might like to come and see what’s going on and lend a hand.

If we can get it tidied up this year, then hopefully next season we can begin to focus on trying/demonstrating a more permacultural approach. It’s a lovely spot and will be a great asset for our group meetings, courses, and awareness raising.

— Peter

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Nine Star Perennial Broccoli

As a trial we shared some nine star perennial broccoli seedlings last year.  After all, if it’s really perennial and really broccoli, that would be great!

Here are our results from year 1.

Philip's nine star perennial broccoli
Dom's nine star perennial broccoli

This is what Dom wrote about his :

Though not huge, my three plants have been looking v. healthy and growing well all winter. The largest is getting on for 3 feet, but the other two are smaller. Like you a couple of days ago I was poking around the foliage and there were loads of little white sprouting broccoli’s. Actually the biggest plant has a relatively large central head  2 -3 inches and several smaller side florets. The next largest has a small central floret but loads of small sprouts all around the stem, and the smallest of the three is not showing any sign of flowering at all yet. I had a taste straight off the plant and they where good. To me the taste was a bit like a cross between cauliflower and broccoli.

My plants produced similar white florets, and the taste was not quite cauliflower, not quite broccoli.  Stronger flavoured than cauliflower I’d say.  Pleasant though and no doubt full of goodness.   My plants were fairly small, maybe 18 inches to 2 foot tall, compared with purple sprouting broccoli plants of the same age which were 3 to 4 feet tall.  It will be interesting to see what the plants and florets are like in years 2, 3, 4 etc – will report again here next year.  So far I’d rename this plant ‘hopefully perennial sort of strong-flavoured small cauliflower’.