6 Purple Vegetables to Grow in Your Superfood Garden

Purple vegetables are rich in anthocyanins, an antioxidant that gives the red, blue, and purple pigment to plants.  Anthocyanins are known to fight free radical damage at the cellular level, offering antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer benefits.  Getting more purple vegetables in your garden and into your meals is an easy way to increase the nutrition and health of your daily meals.

Why grow purple vegetables in your garden?

As well as looking great in the garden, purple varieties of vegetables are high in anthocyanins, violet / blue colored pigments that help to protect the plants from stressors like harsh sunlight and cold temperatures.

When we consume purple vegetables, the anthocyanins act as antioxidants that help to quench free radicals in the body. Anthocyanins are also found in blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, cherries, red grapes and red wine.

Carrots

Carrots were originally purple or yellow in color before the orange varieties that we’re familiar with appeared.

Purple carrots have similar growing requirements to regular carrots and they do best when the seeds are planted directly in the garden. Purple Haze and Cosmic Purple are dark purple on the outside and bright orange in the middle, while Black Nebula is a dark purple color and it retains its color when cooked.

Kale

There are many different varieties of kale including some beautiful colorful varieties that range from reddish purple to dark purple.

Red Russian kale has a purple stem with green and purple leaves or if you’re looking for dark purple leaves choose a variety like Redbor. I like to pick kale leaves when they’re young and tender to use in salads. You can also steam kale leaves or use them in stir fries.

Cabbage

Purple cabbages are brightly colored vegetables that are great for making a colorful salad or coleslaw with.

You can also plant ornamental cabbages which are edible but they taste bitter, so you can use the leaves as a garnish or just enjoy them as a bedding plant in the garden.

Cauliflower

Growing vibrant purple cauliflowers in your garden is a great way to impress your friends and they make a nice change from the regular white variety. Cauliflowers are cool-season vegetable plants and they do best when planted in fall or early winter.

Tomatoes

Red tomatoes are a vegetable garden staple, but there are some interesting and attractive purple varieties that you can plant to make your garden more interesting.

Purple colored tomatoes will add color and interest to your salads.

Lettuce

There are many salad vegetables that range from purple to burgundy and they look great when planted alternately with green lettuces in the garden.