Extra Early Brassica Plants are a great way to give you some of the earliest crops of Brussels, Cabbage, Calabrese and Cauliflower - plant them in March and you could be harvesting from May!

Our Extra Early Brassica Collection with FREE Collars worth £3.49 includes:

• 16x Broccoli (Calabrese) Marathon Plants - Produces dense blue-green, finely beaded succulent heads from May.
• 16x Cabbage Duncan Plants - One of the best spring cabbages, producing firm, pointed heads in May but can be picked before maturity and eaten as 'spring greens' in April.
• 16x Cauliflower Maybach Plants - An excellent, early maturing variety that will not 'blow' in warm weather.
• 16x Brussels Sprout Clodius Plants - Dependable solid, round sprouts ready in time for the Christmas period and continuing for the remainder of winter when other green vegetables are scarce.
• 2x Packs of 30 Brassica Collars - A simple solution to stop the cabbage root fly, a notorious allotment pest that can cause serious damage to your brassica crops.

By sowing seed in the autumn and then gently growing the plants on over the winter under controlled, cool greenhouse conditions to produce sturdy young plants that are ready to despatch and plant out in mid/late March, some 8-10 weeks earlier than the main brassica planting period.

The Extra Early Brassicas have been sown in October and overwintered undercover with frost protection. The plants are tough, sturdy and stocky ready hardened off for immediate planting on arrival.

The plants will not look as fresh as spring sown plants BUT don’t be alarmed! The plants will be taller and have some yellow leaves which will either fall off or green up as the plant gets growing. The plants are typical of those planted by commercial growers up and down the country and will THRIVE in prepared soil.

These plants will crop 6-8 weeks earlier in your garden than spring raised crops and give your first flush of produce from your garden – and what’s more many will have cropped before persistent brassica pests are around. ) Caterpillar and whitefly.

Prepare your planting bed dig over and add some pre planting fertiliser, rake level and walk over the bed firming the soil.- Brassicas like firm soil. Lightly rake the surface level again.

Using a dibber or trowel make a hole deep enough to cover the root ball and the neck of the plant. Water the hole and put the plant in backfilling and firming the soil lightly around the plant.