The wild and wonderful world of perennial brassicas

Fancy growing a hardy vegetable that will provide nutritious food for a few years? Several members of the brassica (cabbage) family grow as perennials, not setting seed for years.

Brassicas like broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts have been bred in the last 2000 years or so for their large heads, or their ‘sprouts’. Saving seed from these kinds of brassicas requires strict isolation from other members of the brassica family, including wild species, as this plant family is notoriously promiscuous.

Perennial brassicas are earlier forms of this family and are often propagated by cuttings rather than by seed. Around the world people are growing