Growing Broccoli in your Vegtable garden...Trials & Tribulations!

Growing Broccoli has become a challenge! For me, discovering the first quarter size Broccoli head is always exciting to me! Since I have only been veggie gardening for a few years now. Growing Broccoli has all been trial and error for me! Knowing the difference of when to harvest and when it's too late is an easy call.

The center heads must be cut before it blossoms! How do you know when this is about to occur? Did you know a head of Broccoli is a cluster of flower buds?

When the head is very young, it's individual buds are packed super tight. Take your thumb and rub over the Broccoli head and you will feel the tightness! If the buds stay tight let it grow. Pictured below is a tight Broccoli head.

If the buds loosen and spread out, most likely it is about to produce little yellow flowers. If your buds are loose, you might want to harvest it before it flowers. Even if the buds are very small, harvest anyway. Below is a picture of the buds spreading and loosing their tightness.

Sometimes with hot weather, lack of water or some kind of other stress the plant will still be determined to send up flowers and go to seed. Once this happens your Broccoli will stop producing.

After cutting the center head, you will start to get "side shoots" these form on other parts of the stem. They dont get very big, but a bunch of little ones will start to add up. Here is a picture of a side shoot!

It is important once the hot weather starts, to check your plants every other day or so for side shoots. Snip all the little bite size pieces before they flower. You will have a non-stop harvest. They may be small, but depending on how many plants you grow you will have plenty of little florettes.

Happy Gardening!!!

As the Garden Grows, Expands & Gets a little work here and there..

This time of year Gardeners are super busy getting seeds started & getting the dirt ready for planting.

I have been attempting to get things done . Garden beds need to be cleaned out and dug up, seedlings need to be thinned. Raised beds are a work in progress! I have been working on my compost pile and getting all the rabbit poo ready to make the first batch of tea for the plants I grew indoors. In about a month, most of those veggies I have been growing indoors will be in the ground.

This week we are having lots of rain, which is good! This will make the soil more workable in the next few weeks and will hopefully fill the rain barrels full of water for future use. Here are a few pictures of whats happening in my Garden Spot!

I have also had the Hubby and a friend dig out an old shrub to make room for a Pomagranite Tree!

A little more clean up of this area is still needed, but this is where my tree will grow!

Here is the garlic bed I started!

It's off to a great start!

Here's the Red Onion Bed!

Here's how its looking today!

The Radishes are doing well! I have 3 differnt kinds growing!

White Icicle, Cherry Belle and English Breakfast (I think thats what the last one is called)

The Wheel Burrow Lettuce bed is doing great! I have multiple greens growing plus some scallions!

I have Black Seeded Simpson, Arugula, Italian Greens & a Gourmet Blend. The best part of growing lettuce this way, NO SNAILS!

In this bed I have Brocolli, Spitfire Nasturtiums and some Lettuce of some sort thats sprouting from last year! I have also added some eggshells in hopes that the snails leave my lettuce and brocolli alone!

The Peas are starting to work there way up the trellis. More Pea pictures to come as soon as they grow in a special design I have come up with! I think you will enjoy seeing the way I grew these Peas! But its not where I want it yet. So you will have to wait a bit longer.

My Spitfire Nasturtiums are doing great. I have them growing in a few places. Im going to train these to grow up my tiki tourches to hide the poles! Hope it will make it look more natural.

Here are my Turnips. I still need to thin them out. They are off to a great start too!

Swiss Chard is still going strong! I love the red! I cant wait to add some chard with my flower beds.

Here's a view of a small section of the garden. There is some Fennyl, Spinach, Celery, Chard & Onion.

Here is 2 of my kids helping me out. 2 out of 4 like to garden, not bad! They are big helpers! My son always has big ideas and my lil girl loves to just pick everything, lol.

Here is a new bed we started. This will hold our Baby Pak Choi (Green Fortune) It will tolerate some of the summer heat! Im hoping to add other Herbs around it for shade.

Well, thats all I have going on so far! I have been growing alot of seeds indoors. Soon all that will be joining the garden.

Whats growing in your garden?

Happy Gardening!!!