Discover the power of purple veg

Grow purple beans, cauliflower, tomatoes and carrots to help you lose the blues.

From black tomatoes and peppers to deep violet climbing beans, and mauve cauliflowers to plum-coloured carrots – these eye-catching veg have an air of the unusual.

Yet purple was actually the natural colour of carrots, Robert Tennuci, director of Premier Seeds Direct, points out.

“Orange is a hybrid of their natural colour. Generally, when you get the black genealogy, there’s a beneficial chemical in these vegetables which is thought to make them better for you,” he says.

Whether you want to add a dark contrast to lighter shades in your flower border, or just want to create more interest in your vegetable patch or on your plate, here’s a selection of purple candidates worth considering…

Tomatoes

The common colour is red and there are increasingly shades of yellow available, but many dark purples have also come on to the market to add drama to your summer salads.

Among them is tomato ‘Black Cherry’, which is almost black, while a true purple comes in the form of ‘Indigo Rose’. If you want to plump for an American heirloom variety, you could do worse than ‘Purple Cherokee’, a large-fruited variety first recorded over 100 years ago, and thought to be originally grown by the Cherokee Indians.

Good to know: Check what type of tomato it is before buying. If you have a small space, a compact bush tomato you can grow in a pot might be preferable, as you don’t have to pinch out the side shoots to keep growth in check, and many are small cherry types – although they are likely to need some support. For larger areas, you could go for a cordon type (single stemmed, requiring a single cane).

Carrots

Nowadays, carrots are commonly orange – but the purple variety is here to stay, with recommended varieties such as ‘Purple Dragon’, ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Purple Sun’, all widely available from seed specialists including Chiltern Seeds, Premier Seeds Direct, Marshalls, Thompson & Morgan and Suttons.

Good to know: Scrub purple carrots rather than peeling them, and eat them raw to retain the antioxidants in the coloured skin.

Broccoli

Purple sprouting broccoli is expensive in the supermarket, yet easy to grow – and packs a colourful punch with its rich purple florets.

Suttons has also just launched ‘Purplelicious’, which unusually features purple stems topped with green florets. It will be making its debut at RHS shows this season.

Good to know: ‘Purplelicious’ is a compact variety, and quicker growing than traditional purple sprouting broccoli.

Cauliflower

Purple cauliflowers will zing up your vegetable patch and create a talking point around the dinner table, especially if you use the florets raw in salads and as crudités for dips.

The colour comes from anthocyanins – the antioxidants found in red wine – making purple cauliflower more nutritious, says Suttons, which has introduced ‘Depurple’, a new trendsetter with buttery sweet, lavender-blue florets.

Good to know: Sprinkle the purple florets with lemon juice before cooking, to retain the colour.

Asparagus

Those delicious green spears, in season in May and June, now have additional shades of purple. Try ‘Pacific Purple’ – stringless spears that are tastier than some green varieties. Steam them lightly or eat them raw, to stop the colour being lost in overcooking.

Good to know: If you’re attempting to grow asparagus, you need to be patient as you’ll have to wait around three years if you want a good crop. Don’t cut the spears in the first or second years, to allow the plants to build up strength for the future.

Potatoes

‘Purple Majesty’

You can now cut into both regular potatoes and sweet potatoes to find purple flesh. It’s admittedly a bit weird tucking into a ‘Purple Majesty’, with its deep violet-coloured flesh, but if you can get past the colour of this early maincrop, it makes a good jacket or salad potato.

Try sweet potato ‘Erato Violet’ (J Parker’s), a unique variety that produces strong violet-red skins. Robust tubers are thick and oval shaped, and packed with excellent flavour as well as vitamins A, C, and B6.

Good to know: The attractive colour of the ‘Erato Violet’ remains after cooking, and has a rich and sweet flavour.

Aubergines

Aubergine ‘Purple Knight’

While these impressive vegetables tend to be almost black-skinned, you can grow lighter purple varieties. Aubergine ‘Purple Knight’ (Marshalls, Pennard Plants), for example, is an unusual-looking variety producing an early harvest of long, banana-shaped purple fruits which are delicious roasted, sautéed or baked. It’s compact, so ideal for pots on a sunny patio if you’re short of space.

Good to know: Sow them between February and May, but don’t plant out till May or June because they won’t tolerate frost.

Beans and peas

Whether you want purple flowers or fruits, seed companies can provide you with a wealth of choices – from the climbing French bean ‘A Cosse Violette’ (producing narrow, stringless, 25 centimetre-long dark purple pods) to the snow pea, Mange Tout ‘Shiraz’ (the first commercial variety with purple pods). More compact than a regular pea, it has striking purple flowers and flat, dark purple pods, with a sweet flavour.

Good to know: Purple French beans turn green when cooked.

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