Bought some type of brocolli/calabrese plants in a garden centre last June, put them down and didnt really give them any more attention. From about August onwards they started to give lovely crops of these small heads of broccolli, all through the winter until about mid December. Winter came and went and as you can see from the photo they are flowering again. Every time we harvest the heads, about 14 days later we have another great crop. (this photo was taken in mid Feb 2012). So just wondering 1) Should we expect a long season of this great crop? 2) Anything we should be doing to it to keep it going ? 3) Any idea of the variety/name so I will know it when I see it in the shops again?
It is probably an autumn/winter hybrid that has kept on going because of the mild winter, producing new flower stems to replace those you took off.
You can continue to use the florets, of course, but you might try to propagate the plant vegetatively,to have it for the future.
Try to find some small but mature non-flowering stems, or failing that take the flowers off some stems.
Let these dry off for a day or two out of sunlight. The insert them in small pots of compost/sand mix and place in bright place covered with a white plastic bag.
If they root successfully, you can plant the plants out in May.