Many people are hostile to Brussels sprouts, and it turns out that their loathing may be legitimate, according to recent research. Sprouts contain chemicals that produce a bitter taste, but only those with a certain gene can detect this bitterness, giving them the perfect excuse to leave them on the side of their plate. Others can't taste this bitterness as they have a mutated copy of the gene, and therefore find sprouts much more palatable. Thankfully I belong to the latter group. Cooked lightly sprouts can be delicious, with a strong, nutty taste that goes perfectly with roast turkey and all the trimmings, and being able to pick them fresh from the garden on Christmas morning makes growing your own completely worthwhile.
Unlike so many of our vegetables, which have been cultivated and eaten for thousands of years, the Brussels sprout is a very recent addition to British gardens. There are no records of it being cultivated in this country before the nineteenth century, although it was grown on the Continent from at least the thirteenth century onwards. As the name suggests, it was first recorded as growing in and around Brussels in Belgium in 1213, and is likely to have arisen as a sport or mutation of a cabbage plant. One wonders why it took 600 years to reach Britain, but perhaps it was tried by a few and never caught on because of its limited appeal. In his 1822 Encyclopedia of Gardening, John Claudius Loudon wrote about the sprout as if it were a novelty: 'At Brussels they are sometimes served at table with a sauce composed of vinegar, butter and nutmeg, poured upon them hot after they have been boiled.' After this, the sprout became better known, although choice of cultivars was limited and people were far from convinced that it was a vegetable that they should willingly include in their gardens.
How to grow Brussels sprouts
Cultivation
For this reason alone I think it's worth plugging the much-maligned sprout: it may not be the world's greatest beauty, but it is easy to grow and generally trouble-free. Like other brassicas, it needs a fertile soil, and in a good crop rotation should be planted in the spot where peas and beans grew the year before as legumes are ‘nitrogen-fixers", introducing extra nitrogen into the soil via nodules in their roots. The soil should be further enriched by digging in plenty of manure in the autumn, giving it plenty of time to rot down before planting.
I sow Brussels sprouts in modules, to be planted out in late spring or early summer, which can help the seedlings through that tricky first stage when they might fall victim to any number of pests, from flea beetles and slugs to pigeons, but they can also be planted into a seed bed, sown thinly along a drill and thinned as they grow. When the seedlings have seven leaves and are about 10-12cm tall, they can be transplanted to their final growing position, spaced 75cm apart each way. The sprouts themselves are a series of leaf buds like mini cabbages that grow in spiral formation up the stem. They ripen over several weeks from the base of the stem upwards, and should be harvested in this way, starting at the bottom of the stem. As they grow, keep them well watered and earth up the soil around the roots, firming it down with your heel; loose soil around the roots may be the cause of the sprouts 'blowing' - in other words, their tightly packed forms unfurling into loose leaves – which can also happen if the sprouts are left too long on the stem.
For true devotees, early and late cultivars are available, so you can start eating them well before Christmas Day. One of the best early varieties is 'Brigitte', a reliable F1 hybrid which can be harvested from October. For Christmas and beyond, 'Bedford' is one of the oldest varieties still available, introduced in the Twenties and producing large, tasty sprouts on sturdy stems all winter long. A more recent hybrid developed from 'Bedford' is 'Montgomery', which is one of the best for yield and taste. Some of the heritage varieties can't be beaten for flavour – including 'Noisette', which produces smallish sprouts with a delicious nutty taste – but there are also F1 hybrids that are hot on their heels for taste. 'Trafalgar' is one of the best new arrivals, with tall stems of medium-size sprouts that have been bred for a sweeter flavour.
If you're concerned about appearance, 'Rubine' and 'Red Ball' produce red sprouts, like tiny red cabbages, and for real novelty value you can try the recently bred 'Flowersprout'. A cross between red kale and Brussels sprout, it produces frilly sprouts like small Savoy cabbages - definitely one for those with the sprout-hating gene, as it tastes more like spring greens.
