Piricìcaba / Brazilian Broccoli

Brazilian broccoli makes many modest flower stalks rather than one massive bloom. It’s mild and tasty like a regular broccoli. Why grow this one rather than any other variety? Because Piricicaba just keeps on producing – as long as you keep harvesting its flower buds, it will keep making more, even through hot summer weather.

The first time we grew Piricicaba we started harvesting in June. We had a steady supply all through the summer heat, all fall, all winter inside a hoop house. I finally pulled up the plants the next April to make room for something else. They were rather buggy and twisted by then but still producing.

Culture: Sow seed from early spring to mid-summer. Each plant can become a sprawling mound 3 feet tall and wide, so give it room. Likes rich soil (of course), regular water, full to 3/4 sun. Harvest all flower stalks at bud stage to keep them coming.

Saving Seed: The plants need at least 2 months beyond flowering to ripen seed. They’ll cross with any plant in the brassica family, so you’ll need to be vigilant about wild mustards and any cabbage family veggies that may try to flower at the same time. Piricicaba makes this easy by producing new flowers continuously – here in the dry California summer we keep harvesting stalks until all the wild mustards have gone to seed, and then we just keep an eye on the garden brassicas to make sure they don’t bolt while the broccoli is flowering.

Grown in 2010; germination tested November 2011: 70%
Packet = around 100 seeds - $3.