Purple Sprouting Broccoli marks the shift to spring
Joey Staub knows purple sprouting broccoli well. He’s now Product Innovation Manager for Portland-based Organically Grown Company (OGC), but he first encountered purple sprouting as a farm manager of Gathering Together Farm in Philomath, Oregon. In 2010 OGC asked the farm to participate in a program to trial the crop. Those early collaborations were successful and these days OGC works with three different growers to plant 60,000 purple spouting broccoli seedlings each year for harvest in March, April, and May. While exact availability depends on the weather, purple sprouting broccoli is usually in PCC stores from mid-March onward, said produce merchandiser Elliott Lamoureaux, sourced from many small growers through OGC. It’s often “the first taste of local spring veg to hit our shelves,” he says.