Purple Cape winter Cauliflower

[hiven]

Just a quick update, Telsing. All 10 purple cape plants survived -12 C and now it is thawing, I will check and report again !

[ottawagardener]

Thanks for the update. I"m looking forward to the final report.

[hiven]

They are doing great ! I removed the thin fleece 2 days ago .

[diane]

My current Purple Cape plants were sown in August 2008. They produce heads
in late February or March.

This year the heads are very strong-tasting and I don't know why.

[notonari]

hiven and others, I recently read about purple cape, would love to try it. Did you find out if it's perennial?

[robertb]

Purple Cape's a very old variety first recorded, as a broccoli, in 1808. It may have been reselected for cauliflower heads at some point. Di Sicilia Violetto, if that's the same as Purple of Sicily, is one I tried last year. It did well, but collapsed at the first sign of frost. I've had that problem before with southern European brassicas.

[orflo]

Purple cape isn't perennial over here, at least not in my garden. It does produce some very nice purple headed broccolis in December up to March, if the winter temperatures aren't too low. They usually don't form broccoli heads later on, but just an upright sort of palm kale shaped cabbage. I do cover the plants with a fleece during winter, in the first place because of the pigeons who can eat an astounding amount of brassica leaves, and secondly it seems to give a protection against the hardest frosts. Where's that pigeon-free mediterranean climate...:-)?

[notonari]

That's too bad, the prospect of finding a perennial broccoli was very appealing.. But an early purple, overwintering broccoli isn't all that bad either, might try to grow it next year.

[robertb]

It might be worth using it in a breeding programme. Cross it with Daubenton's, let's say, and see what happens.