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Vegetable Gardening
mauirose_gw

Piracicaba

16 years ago

Piracicaba (56 days) Open-pollinated. The tributes keep flowing in for this unusual brassica. Piracicaba (pronounced peer-a-SEA-cah-bah) is a city and river in Brazil famous for its beautiful waterfalls, and home of the university where this cultivar was developed. About halfway between a heading broccoli and a broccoli raab, these succulent tender small green heads with very large beads make delightful raw eating. Very loose heads, lots of side shoots, sweet stalks. Even the fairly large leaves make excellent greens. Garden writer Barbara Damrosch found it equally delicious steamed. NY State trialers report it is best as a fall crop with relatively good frost tolerance, although it was bred to withstand heat and has produced heads at temperatures in the 90s in trials in California.

That's the blurb from the Fedco catalog and about all i knew when i ordered seeds this spring. I started out with two plants but the slugs got one, rats! Turned out that was OK because the one plant supplies two people with a meal a week. The perfect amount with so many other things happening in the garden.

Because i grew just one plant i can't say how much variabililty there is in the strain but my plant was much larger than i expected, easily 3x3 by almost 4' tall. It has needed only weekly watering and an occasional sprinkle of chicken manure.

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Piracicaba Plant-Loopers like them too ; )

Production has been just fine during our summer months but i can't say for sure how heat tolerant it is since the Umpqua and Arcadia broccoli have also performed well.

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Arcadia Harvest

The florets have been pretty small, 1 inch or less, but i pick them with some small leaves attached and the stems and leaves are both tender and delicious.

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Just wanted to share my good experience with anyone else who is thinking about giving this yummy veg a spot in the garden!

Comments (4)

  • 16 years ago

    Pretty clearly a member of Olereaca, so you'll have to watch that it doesn't cross with other common Brassicas if you let it go to seed.

  • 16 years ago

    Well, I haven't tried it, and nothing against it, but to me it sort of looks like they reinvented the wheel with this one. All of my broccoli plants look like that by the time the first, second, and then third crop of heads are picked. At that point, it's been cut so many times all of the shoots produce individual florettes about an inch across. And yes, I often pick them with a couple of attached leaves and cook that way.

    Now, I did try the variety Purple Peacock from Territorial Seeds a couple of years ago. Same basic idea, except this one was a broccoli x purple kale cross, and it had a distinct purple pigmentation and feather, kale like leaves.

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  • 16 years ago

    Good point PN. Since i only planted a few seeds this year i have tons left over for next year!

    Dennimi (Just noticed now that i've been reading your posts as Dennis all this time)~i have some Purple Peacock seeds someone just sent me. Did you like it??, good flavor?

    This was the first year i was able to grow really good broccoli. I did get some side shoot production but nothing like the Piracicaba in terms of quantity. And the broccoli side shoots were still clearly just small broccoli while the Piracicaba was more raab like.

    Now i haven't tried 'sprouting' broccoli because i read that it prefers cooler temps.

    Either you are a much better gardener than me or the Piracicaba really did perform better in warm weather. Maybe both ; )

  • 16 years ago

    Hey, Mauirose -- Denninmi = Dennis in Michigan.

    Yes, I did like the Purple Peacock kale/broccoli cross thingy. It was very pretty and productive. For about a month, anyway, once it got going. Then the bambi ate it, so I can't tell you if it would have done more. But yes, I'd grow it again.

    I wouldn't be surprised if that particular variety did do better in a warmer climate, in light of the fact it was bred in Brazil. They probably would need something more heat tolerant, since most of Brazil is pretty darned steamy most of the time.

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