When is it a good time to plant broccoli?

Question

I live in Tampa Fl. and I'm starting my winter vegitable garden. This year I wanted to try my hand in planting broccoli. When and where and what soil & conditions does broccoli like. Thanks for any advice or suggestions.

Answer 1

Broccoli likes cool weather. Any good loamy and fertile soil is good. If it gets too hot it will go to seed, bolt and taste bitter. How cool are your winters? By cool I mean 40's to 60's.

Answer 2

Broccoli is a cool weather plant. This plant does not like soil that stay 60 degrees or higher at night. Plant in the part of your garden where the broccoli will get sun but not intense sun and plant where the soil will stay more cool. Broccoli often does better if started in the house and actual plants are then put outside. Gorw until the plant has more than its first true leaves. Broccoli also tends to bolt if the sunlight becomes too intense. In Michigan, where I live, broccoli is planted as early as March as broccoli can really tolerate cold and prefers cold weather. If you are buying seeds or plants look for a type of broccoli that is advertised as being a producer in your zone with your type of climate.

Answer 3

In our area of the Midwest, most cole crop damage (cabbage, broccoli, brussels srpouts) is caused by cabbage looper moth larvae (Looper worms, some call them). They're light green, soft bodied catterpillars about an inch in length. In the very early spring, when you see all those pretty white butterflies in the garden, they're setting you up for puny broc and holey cabbage. If you want to stay organic, your best bet is, as someone else said, floating row covers. This will keep all your flying and jumping pests off the plants. Keep the moths off the plants, and you'll have no worms. I never do this, but I do hand pick the worms in the early mornings and feed them to the chickens (When my daughter was very small, she did this for a penny per worm, made good dough and had fun watching the hens, too.). I know this isn't everyone's idea of a good time, but hey, we're farmers. You can also go the insecticidal soap route, but you have to re-apply it every time it rains or dews heavily. Please avoid chemical pesticides, as they usually kill the "good guys" that are responsible for pollination in the garden and in the wild.

Answer 4

Broccoli probably won't do that well in Tampa. I tried in the Orlando area several years ago without much luck. If you do try it, plant in the last week of November.

Answer 5

How To Plant Broccoli

Whether you grow your own seedlings by planting broccoli seeds indoors under lights several weeks before the last frost in your area, or you buy seedlings from the garden center or from mail-order catalogs, it is important to plant them outdoors correctly. Seedlings should be at least four weeks old and have two to four leaves and a stem half as thick as a pencil. Plant them about two to three weeks before the expected last frost date for your area. While they can handle cool weather, it is best to protect them from a surprise late frost. Be prepared to cover the tender plants temporarily with white polyspun garden fleece, plastic water insulated collars, newspaper cloches, or a cold frame.

Planting Steps

1. Plant broccoli seedlings on an overcast day, or late in the afternoon, to reduce their exposure to hot sun while they recover from transplant shock. Wait until the soil is fairly dry and can be dug without making sticky clumps. Prepare the garden bed by digging into the soil from 6 to 8 inches deep with a trowel or shovel. Turn over the soil to loosen it, breaking up any clumps and removing rocks and debris. This is a good time to sprinkle some all-purpose slow-acting granular fertilizer on the soil and mix it in. Smooth and level the planting area.

2. Dig holes in the planting bed about 12 inches apart--further if you want the largest possible broccoli heads. Make them a little deeper than the containers the seedlings are in. Tip the seedlings gently out of their little containers and set each plant in its hole at the level of the first set of leaves--about 1/2 to 1 inch deeper than they grew in their indoor containers. This causes the plants to develop roots all along the submerged part of the stem. It also keeps the plants erect as they mature and allows them to build a strong root system.

3. Gently firm the soil around the seedling stems and water the area. If you have put slow-acting fertilizer in the soil already, do not fertilize the seedlings further at this time. Adding some seaweed- or kelp-based tonic, to the water helps ease the shock of transplanting and get the seedlings growing faster. It is optional, not essential.

Planting Tricks

Sneaking Spacing Of Seedlings: The size of the broccoli head and the number of side shoots it produces after the main head is harvested is related to how closely you plant the seedlings. To get the maximum size head and the most side shoots afterwards place your broccoli 18 inches apart. If you just want to harvest lots of broccoli at one time (perhaps for freezing) and then plant something else in that area, space the plants 10 to 12 inches apart. You’ll get smaller heads but more pounds of broccoli per square foot of space.

Getting A Double Harvest: At planting time or shortly afterward consider spreading a layer of organic material such as straw or chopped leaves on the soil around and between the young plants. This will discourage weeds, retain soil moisture and cool the soil as spring warms up. Alternatively, interplanting lettuce seedlings or radishes, which also like to grow in cool weather, around the base of the broccoli plants provides a second harvest from the same space in the garden. Note: Use lettuce seedlings (not seeds) because broccoli plants exude a chemical called thiocyanate that retards sprouting of plants with very small seeds, such as lettuce and spinach. However, radishes don’t seem to mind.

Basics For Fall Planting

Fall provides a second cool season when broccoli thrives in the garden. During this season plants typically provide the most food from their side shoots rather than from their large main head. Plan to start harvesting at least a month before killing frost in your area, so start new seedlings in late June or early July. This time you can start them outdoors in the North, but raising them indoors protects them from insect and critter problems at their most vulnerable stage. It is worth the two week setback they suffer upon transplanting outdoors which directly seeded plants do not experience.

After four weeks, plant seedlings out in the garden and immediately cover them with either shade cloth or garden fleece raised above the tops of the plants with some kind of support. This protects them from direct sun and keeps the soil a bit cooler. On really hot days, water the seedlings at noon to cool the soil even more. Later, if you protect your broccoli plants with fleece as frost approaches, you can usually continue harvesting for several weeks past killing frost. Many people mistakenly plant fall broccoli and fall cauliflower at the same time. Broccoli should be transplanted several weeks earlier than cauliflower.

Broccoli In Containers

Broccoli grows well in containers. Choose one that is at least 12 inches wide and at least 12 inches deep. Make sure that it has a drainage hole in the bottom. Fill it with a soilless potting mix and plant one or two broccoli plants slightly deeper than the containers they grew in as seedlings. Either mix in some all-purpose slow-acting granular fertilizer to the planting medium at this time, or plan to add dilute liquid fertilizer periodically to the watering can when you water. Plants in containers dry out very quickly, make sure you water faithfully.

To beautify your broccoli containers, plant a ring of white alyssum around their stems to compliment the vegetable’s gray-green foliage. Then add some pink petunias around the outside edge of the container to spill over the edges, soften and brighten the whole container.