Broccoli seeds.

Way back in 2008, Farmer Dill recommended Green Sprouting Calabrese and Green Goliath as very good cut and come again varieties and Super Dome as a good hybrid. Any new information or opinions that could be added to these before I place my order would be appreciated . The warm weather we had here today makes me want to get in the soil and get started.
Thanks.

Our weather here is fantastic--it is definitely put me in sprintime mode. I was enticed inticed into buying some some broccoli plants at the big box today. I've had broccoli seeds planted for a couple of weeks, but very few have germinated yet. I'll transplant the plants I bought today later this week. We have a freeze in the 20's forcast for Tuesday. That will probably be the last really cold night this year.

The variety I bought is a hybrid, 'Major'. It is an early, mid-size broccoli. Acording to the vendor it has a "very good tolerance to heat." That's important in central Texas, since it frequently hits 90 in April here. I'm hoping that the 45-day maturity will give the crowns time to get to size before the late spring heat arrives.

David

I love to plant my broccoli in the fall.
I started them from seeds in August and I planted out at the beginning of september (even if it seems too hot).
I had my first broccoli harvest in October and after that the plant keep producing side shoots (which look like small broccoli heads) untill March. That is the time that I normally remove them to give room to the tomatoes.
In this way I do have months of products instead that just one head.
The broccoli are very winter hardy and they can take very low temperature with no problem in our area.
Also there are just a few pests and I don't even worry about them.
You can see the small side shoots in the picture.

I've had good luck with Packman. I plant both in spring and then again in fall, but I really like broccoli. The more the merrier. I've been thinking about maybe starting some Belstar. It is said to hold up well to heat.

As I am always one to try something new I've got some Purple Peacock seeds this spring. Its a cross between kale and broccoli, I think. Now I'm debating with myself whether I should plant some out for this spring and some more for fall/winter, or just wait and start them all for fall/winter. The kale part makes me want to think fall/winter........=~

The Bonanza Hybrid broccoli seeds I sowed on Feb 1st were sprouting this morning. Hubby and I love broccoli!

On Sunday, I had a "light-bulb" moment! The garden room where I usually keep seedlings is cold this time of year, but hubby's den is always toasty warm. From now on, the seed trays are going to be set-up in there - move over daddy!

"move over daddy!"

Hah! I love it! Too funny! "Make Room For Broccoli"! (Would make a nice sitcom, eh?)

Shoe

Shoe - fortunately hubby likes vegetables as much as I do. This morning, he even offered to clear a larger space for the seedling trays.

Are there broccoli varieties that aren't so bitter and in fact sweet? I also like varieties that grow a lot of side shoots after the main head is harvested.

I found Green Magic broccoli to be very tasty and not bitter, and yes, I even thought it tasted sweet. I remember thinking, man, I never thought broccoli could actually taste sweet!
It did not produce any decent quantity of side shoots though -- just a couple wimpy ones.

Emerald Crown is delicious [the best I have found in about 25 varieties] and puts out a lot of side shoots.

Lise, my Green Magic actually produced decent side shoots this year. I couldn't believe it!

Here are my recently transplanted broccoli plants. I still have another 20 or so seedlings that I will plant in a week or two. Hopefully they will all produce before the spring heat gets too intense! Lots of broccoli since it is one of my wife's favorite fresh vegetables.

David

I love how straight your rows are! My broccoli seedlings need about another week.

Well that's interesting about the side shoots, callalily. It could well be that our two arctic blasts (or so the news channel dubbed them) were just too much stress for my plants to continue to produce side shoots.

Any chance if I put down broccoli seeds now or in the next week or two, do you think? Or have I missed the window? Been meaning to get in an online order of Green Magic since they are among the most heat-resistant, or failing that, run down to the store and get whatever variety seed they have. I could do that today, even, if it's not too late. I'm going to keep my eye out for transplants too, of course -- always a hit-and-miss proposition around here -- but I might get lucky!

In my area is to late to start broccoli seeds now. It will get hot too soon and they will just bolt.
I have planted my broccoli seeds in august indoor and moved them outdoor in september.
I harvested broccoli from October untill before the arctic cold of last week !!
Lots and lots of broccoli heads and side shoots.
Now the plants look mushy ... I will removed them soon to plant my tomatoes.

Thanks, drthor. My biggest 'what to do?' questions are usually really about *when*.

Lisa,

If you can find some plants locally, you could still give broccoli a try. The days-to-maturity for the plants I put out is 45 days (from transplant). That means that I should have broccoli by early April. Even if it takes a little longer, we didn't hit real heat last year until May. The highest temp last April was 87 on the 26th. The nights were still relatively cool as well. If you can find plants, it isn't a huge cost to give it a try. Lowes was selling a 4-pack for $1.68 (or $1.86?). You could plant a dozen for less than a fast-food lunch.

David

Lisa, I am still planting broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seeds but our weather is quite a bit different from yours. My last window for planting cole crop seeds is in March. I tried planting later last year. I figured what did I have to lose, a few seeds and a little time.
Belstar is a great broccoli both for side shoots and heat tolerance. Last year I picked broccoli from that variety up till June.

I picked up a Texas A&M planting guide for south Texas the other day. I laughed and laughed at the planting dates, then realized they'd lumped us in with Corpus, San Antonio and Houston!

I liked David's comment about 4-packs at Lowes for under $2.00. I recently purchased organic broccoli from Safeway and the Whole Food Store for $2.99 per pound and the same for cauliflower. Unfortunately I have to wait a bit to transplant either one, but I am thinking about growing both in covered raised beds this season. A recent posting about 'Square Foot Gardening' got me to thinking about some possibilities for doing this with staggering planting dates. My raised beds are 4' x 8', which equates to 32 one-foot squares. This would allow for a number of successive plantings as well as a variety of types to compare with each other. Depending on the variety I guess you could reasonably place four transplants per square. This is a first attempt at this approach for me. Any ideas on the method would be helpful.

mraider3, I think for broccoli, you'll want only 1 plant per square foot. Those plants can get huge before they finally start producing a head. At least that has been my experience.

dreaves, I found some broccoli plants at Lowe's, so just need to pick some up quick and I'm good to go. I think they're Packman. Thanks.

LiseP, thanks. That is the type of information I am looking for. The recent discussions of 'square foot' gardening in raised beds has fallen into my plan to intensive my use of my six raised beds. I have been asking that question in various threads and have not received any feed back until now. I am mostly concerned about the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower bed plantings at this point. I direct seeded in one of those beds last year and had nothing to show for my efforts. With these new threads I have decided to with three successive plantings of the above and start about six weeks before the last frost free date with the first. The beds are covered with three each old window panes, and I have decided to use a layer of cardboard, a layer of wood chips, and a layer of composted cow manure before adding the growing mix. This plan has been altered now several times with some recent feedback so it's not a fixed plan yet.

I was planning on a closer spacing of these plants, but I believe you are correct and will adjust accordingly. One abstract comment I saw for broccoli plantings was to plant some leaf lettuce around the broccoli transplants to reduce the weeds. I have grown black-seeded simpson in these raised beds and it works well as a cut and come again lettuce which virtually eliminates weeds once established. This may works for cabbage and cauliflower as well.

I agree with Lise, no more than one plant of broccoli per sq. ft. Cauliflower needs at least 18 inches each way, they get bigger than broccoli and need more room. Plus with cauliflower, big leaves equals big heads. Cabbage can go 8 inches apart in rows one foot apart.

We garden intensively in raised beds, but on a commercial scale. Our beds are 4 ft wide and 34 ft long. In those beds I can get 99 broccoli plants, 75 cauliflower plants and 135 cabbage (smaller heads, if you want big heads, go at least one foot spacing). The cabbage we grow is Charmant, which can tolerate close spacing.

When using close spacing, be sure the transplants are all the same size. If you stick a small transplant in the row, the larger ones will crowd it out, especially if it is in the middle.

Sometimes we follow salad mix with cole crops. The seeds in the bed which didn't germinate the first time around sometimes come up all around the broccoli or cauliflower plants. I can harvest lettuce and other greens before they get crowded out by the big leaves of the cole crops! We do no till, so most of my garden now has salad mix growing everywhere. We just leave it, it doesn't hurt anything.

Thank You...Thank You....Much appreciated information Lisa and Calalily. Although I plan to keep this on a personal basis I can easily scale this information to our particular needs.

If you don't mind a quick threadjack, Calalilly, you mentioned cauliflower. I had a plant growing, it froze some a couple weeks ago but most of the leaves came through it okay -- but darn it, just noticed a very small head that got started before the freeze -- and that looks bad. Since it is quite small, any chance I could remove it and the plant would produce another head? Or is it a one-shot thing, and it's time to stick a (pitch)fork in this plant and call it done?

Every now and then I have had a cauliflower make a side shoot that forms a little head (size of a tennis ball), but not very often. I'd say stick a (pitch) fork in it!
My cauliflower that were big but not heading during the freeze are mostly making good heads, but a few, especially Cheddar, are making smaller (softball size) heads. Cassius (a white variety) didn't mind the cold at all.

My neighbor has Green Magic broccoli and oh my, his side shoots are huge! That is one variable variety. It took the cold better than Pac Man.