Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
be planted in midsummer through fall, following the frost-tender vegetables. I love broccoli for
extending the total produce grown in the garden each year.
Broccoli grows from seed to harvest in about 11 to 14 weeks although plants started in the fall
will grow a bit slower than plants started early in the spring. They don't like having their roots
disturbed so start seeds in plantable pots. Begin hardening off the plants to move to the garden at
about four weeks.
If you're interplanting with summer crops, cut those vines/plants off at ground level after they are
dead instead of pulling them up by the roots, so you don't disturb the root system of your broccoli
plants. In this case you can plant the seeds directly in the soil about
3
⁄
4
to 1 inch deep. I allow
about 14 to 20 inches between my broccoli plants, which is pretty close spacing, and this allows the
broad leaves to shade out weeds beneath them.
Grow your broccoli in soil that is between 6.0 and 7.0 pH and make sure they get full sun.
Broccoli will take plenty of nutrients so rotate it in after a lighter feeder like onions or beans, and
be sure you've applied plenty of compost or organic fertilizer (see Chapter 6). This same tendency
to feed heavily will make your broccoli sensitive to weeds, so be sure you mulch thickly enough to
smother out the weeds in your garden, and pull any stragglers in your garden area once a week.
All broccoli should be harvested before the green florets bloom into yellow flowers. When the
yellow begins to show it is really too late, and it can happen almost overnight in the spring so
watch out!
Over the Garden Fence
I learned the first year we grew our garden that fresh broccoli is more tender than what I was used to
buying in the grocery store. When you cook your garden-grown broccoli, you won't need to cook it as long
because it is fresh and harvested when ripe!
If you're harvesting heading broccoli you'll get one main, large head, so let it grow big enough to
provide a decent harvest. Sprouting broccoli will produce side-shoots of broccoli as you harvest
mature heads, so the more you harvest, the more it produces. Broccoli raab (pronounced
rob
) is
usually harvested for its zesty greens and should be harvested before the florets mature to avoid a
bitter taste—usually within a mere 50 days of planting. Romanesco varieties have unique spiraled
heads and generally require a little more growing room.
Pests that attack broccoli are usually the same pests you'll find on cabbage. Army worms, flea
beetles, cabbage worms, and cabbage aphids can all attack the leaves. Cabbage root fly is a pest that
can attack the root of the broccoli plant causing a sudden decline in a plant that otherwise seemed
healthy. Rotating where you plant your cabbage family plants can help break the lifecycle of this
pest and prevent attack.
