I have a great respect for Broccoli
because it appreciates the cool climate in which we live. In a long,
cold spring, a summer with little sun, or a fall with no Indian summer,
there is always Broccoli and all it asks is that I keep up with the
picking. Gladly I can keep up with the picking and make a whole meal out
of Broccoli, olive oil and garlic. Our basic green broccoli, sometimes
called “sprouting broccoli” and ‘calabrese’ in Europe, came originally
from Italy. It makes a big plant with deep, spreading roots. Broccoli is
an edible green plant in the cabbage family whose large flowering head
is eaten as a vegetable.
The big broccoli “bunch” that you
buy in the grocery store, really an immature flower head, is usually
only the beginning for the home usually only the beginning for the home
gardener. After the central cluster is cut back, side shoots develop
that can be back, side shoots develop that can be harvested for a long
time if the summer is not blistering hot. In warm-summer climates the
tight buds will “rice,” or open as flowers too soon, thus ending the
crop, so southern gardeners plant at all crop that will bear well into
the winter instead.
Select Site for Broccoli
Choose a spot with good drainage and
air circulation where broccoli and other members of the genus Brassica
have not grown for several years. Full sun is nice, but partial shade
will also sustain broccoli and can even retard bolting. The plot need
not be large. Even though the plants get fairly sizable (2-2 1/2 feet
tall and spread) each one produces a lot of broccoli. Six plants in a
4-foot-by-6-foot plot is a good number to start with. Passionate
broccoli eaters will want more.
Select Soil for Broccoli
Soil should be fairly rich to begin
with. As a leaf-and-stem crop, broccoli needs plenty of nitrogen. I dig
in a shovelful of well-rotted manure for. Each plant you could
substitute a shovelful of compost or a small handful of 10-10-10.
Calcium is important; you can make sure it is there by adding crushed
limestone. Keep in mind that this will also raise the pH—something you
would want to do anyway if your soil is acid. The ideal for broccoli is a
neutral 7.0. It is even more important to add organic matter to the
soil, to help it retain the steady moisture supply that broccoli needs.
Planting Broccoli
In planting broccoli there are
several schedules you can follow. Start seeds indoors in a sunny but
cool place, six or seven weeks before the last average frost date. And
set the seedlings out as 5- to 6- inch plants, two or three weeks before
the last expected frost. Or you can sow directly in the garden; in a
cool climate. So you can do this a month or two before the last frost;
in a warm one do it in very early spring. Usually broccoli is grown from
seedlings transplanted into the garden. Either ones you grow yourself
or ones you purchase in a nursery.
After preparing the planting holes
as described above, set the transplants an inch or two lower in the
ground than they were in their pots or flats, watering them and firming
the soil around them. Cover the young plants if you think there might be
a really hard freeze. Though, the space seedlings about 18 inches apart
each way if you are using a grid, or 18 inches apart in rows with 2-3
feet between the rows. For direct seeding in the garden, sow several
seeds in hills and later snip off all but the strongest plant in each.
Space the hills the same distance apart as you would transplants.
Cutworms like young broccoli plants,
so it is a good idea to use collars to roil them whichever planting
method you use. Where summers are hot, people seed in a second crop in
late spring or early summer. That will mature alter danger of ricing is
past, or they sow a later crop for fall harvest. A crop can even be sown
in fall and wintered over for a spring harvest if winters are mild.
To save space the early crops can be
inter-planted with something else if the plants are wide enough apart.
Fall crops are seeded in July or August. Good mulch will help the plants
retain moisture. But in times of drought give them a good long soaking
with a hose if the soil is dry. Extra enrichment is really needed only
when you’re trying to hasten maturity to beat the heat. In this case a
side dressing of blood meal or fish emulsion soaked in (not dug in)
helps.
Pests and Diseases
The only pest that ever bothered my
broccoli was the small green cabbage worm, which is very common. It
never did much damage to the plants, but it had a way of turning up as a
surprise garnish at the dinner table. Well camouflaged by its color,
even after picking, the worm turns white when cooked. “Good protein!” a
well-brought-up dinner guest may exclaim diplomatically, but unless your
diners have an unusually good sense of humor, you’ll want to check
‘carefully for worms before cooking or soak the broccoli in salt water
to kill and dislodge them.
If they really chew up your plants,
catch them early next year by applying rotenone or BT when you see the
cabbage white. Moreover, butterfly fluttering above them, though you
might prefer author Catherine Osgood poster’s method. She goes out and
swats the butterflies with a tennis racket. Spray off aphids, and foil
root maggots with tar-paper mats. Most hugs won’t bother your late
crops. Diseases like blackleg, black rot and clubroot are best prevented
by crop rotation. In the case of clubroot (puny, yellowed plants with
misshapen roots), boost the pH to 7.0 with some lime.
Harvest Broccoli
When the first nice bunch has formed
in the center of the plant (it won’t be huge, like the one in the
store, unless it is a large-head variety), cut it off at 4-6 inches with
a sharp knife. New ones will form in the leaf axils around it, and all
over the lower stalk. If you don’t keep picking, the green heads will
send up tall yellow flowers. A row of blossoming broccoli looks
beautiful.
But is embarrassing to a good
gardener, for it means that the plant will stop producing edible stalks.
So keep up with the picking, even if you cannot keep up with the eating
and freezing. You can cook and eat stalks with flowers that have
started open. But the opened buds turn brownish when cooked and look
almost as unappetizing as cooked cabbage worms.
Broccoli Varieties
The popular broccoli varieties are
‘Waltham 29,’ the early `DeCicco,’ and ‘Calabrese’ (`Green Sprouting’).
Most people prefer the ones with good side-shoot production, not the
ones that produce just a one-shot head like the ones sold in stores,
although sometimes this is exactly what you want, either for a quick
spring crop before a hot summer, or to make freezing the crop more
efficient. ‘Green Comet Hybrid’ is a good fast maturing variety for this
purpose.
‘Premium Crop’ is a good single-crop
variety. ‘Green Duke’ is a good variety for the south. Another kind of
broccoli that is recently very popular is broccoli raabor raaba or rabb
or di rapa, depending on how you spell it. This is grown by direct
seeding in rows or blocks. It never forms a head at all, just small
branches. Both these and the young leaves are tender and delicious. Also
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