hello friends welcome to California gardening In today's episode we look at
growing broccoli so the variety of broccoli we are growing is called the Sun
king hybrid this is a great variety to grow and we're starting our seeds indoors
broccoli is a cool season crop so can grow it in the fall thru the winter and
even in early spring so we are starting our seeds indoors in this seed starting
kit; the potting mix or the seed starting mix that I've used here is a
combination of coconut coir, vermiculite and compost and in my opinion
this makes a great seed starting mix and you can even use peat moss instead of the
coconut coir now about thirty four days after sowing what I'm doing is I'm
transplanting the seedlings into slightly larger containers
now why am I doing this? my raised beds are not yet ready and these seedlings
have grown pretty big as you can see here by transplanting these broccoli
seedlings into these slightly larger containers I can grow them for a few
weeks till my raised beds are ready for the potting mix here I'm using a potting
mix that comprises of 30% peat moss, 30% vermiculite and 30% of compost
now for the remaining 10% you can use any kind of manure or a different type of
compost or even even use some organic fertilizer
now in this method of growing broccoli we're starting seeds indoors and
transplanting them and we will eventually plant them in our raised beds
but if you want you can direct sow the broccoli in the raised beds or in
containers broccoli is a cool season crop and the seeds will sprout and the
broccoli plants will grow even if you sow them directly and this variety of
broccoli the Sun King hybrid was specifically bred for growing in places
like Southern California where the temperatures can get a little warm or even a
little hot sometimes and they claim that the plant doesn't bolt very easily
bolting is a process when broccoli doesn't produce the broccoli heads but
goes into flowering stage so that's what they claim so let's look at how this
broccoli grows here in Southern California so here are the transplants
they're ready you can leave them for 4-8 weeks to grow in these containers but
I'm gonna wait till my raised beds are ready and then I'm gonna go out and transplant them
in mid-November which is 45 days after sowing I'm gonna start
transplanting the seedlings as you can see the seedlings have grown pretty well
quite bigger in these smaller containers and look at the layout this time this
season I have planted a little less plants spaced out just like what you see
here so we have exactly eight plants in this 4x4 foot raised bed
this layout in my opinion is better than planting nine plants for example but
we'll see how this goes my whole idea of planting this way was that the corner
plants get a little bit more space and so the two plants in the center row and
hopefully this design should work out well for these plants
now make sure that you give enough spacing between your broccoli plants if
you crowd them together they're gonna bolt and they're not going to produce as
many heads of broccoli as you expect so make sure you space them out with what
you see here is at least the minimum spacing to use
so as you can see here 81 days since sowing, the plants have grown quite well now I
I had to replenish some of the soil in the raised beds and I added some more
peat moss and some perlite to these raised bed mix as you can see here
this raised bed mix is working out pretty well for these broccoli plants
you can see that the heads are being formed and these head should mature into
larger broccoli heads very soon so you can wait till the heads get a little
larger as you can see all these plans are producing great heads now so
let's talk a little bit about the fertilizer schedule now the organic
matter in the soil should be able to supply most nutrients but you can side
dress your raised beds with some compost some perlite, vermiculite and some
organic fertilizers so that should supply adequate nutrients now if you are using
a liquid fertilizer like fish or seaweed you make sure that you use it every
three weeks or so because liquid fertilizers are absorbed very quickly by
the plants and you need to do a
fertilizer schedule again every three weeks now to avoid pests like
caterpillars on your broccoli plant you can use one of the solutions that you
see on your screen here both of these are organic they don't contain any
chemicals they're safe for you and by using these you can avoid most
pests and I never had to use any of these pesticides because I watched my
plant and I made sure that it was free of any pests
so we are now in January and as you can see here this broccoli has now grown
quite big and it might grow bigger as well but you want to harvest your
broccoli before they start flowering so at this stage you can still wait for a
little longer
till the head becomes slightly larger
now at what stage do you harvest your broccoli head? now as you can see this
head is pretty firm and we're gonna harvest it because we're not gonna let it go into
flower you can use your broccoli very well at the stage now once you harvest
the main head of the broccoli, you will get a lot of these are side shoots or
side broccoli florets that you can harvest as well and that's the real
benefit of growing a broccoli plant you can harvest these fresh broccoli florets
as long as the plant grows you're not gonna be limited by 1 broccoli
head now in case of cauliflower for example you can get one large head but with
broccoli you get all these mini florets right througout the growing season so
you always have a supply of fresh broccoli right in your backyard now while
you're harvesting your broccoli you might notice that some broccoli florets are
going to flower and you might want to remove these because it attracts
butterflies and moths that will lay eggs on your broccoli which you do not want
so this is the broccoli harvest for a single day all these lovely broccoli
florets and I was able to do repeated harvests I used to just come in my backyard
harvest a few florets and that was a good harvest for that day so there we
have it folks
broccoli is my favorite vegetable, my number one favorite vegetable and I'd
like to know from you do you like broccoli
do you like growing broccoli and what varieties of broccoli have you tried and
what are some of the challenges you faced
I'll see you again soon
happy gardening