I almost always get Spring broccoli harvests. It is all about planting early enough but not too early and also planting transplants that are roughly 3-5 weeks old and have 3-5 true leaves and absolutely, positively have not become stressed by being rootbound or too dry. Growing my own broccoli plants is about the only way I can guarantee to myself that I'll get a harvest because purchased broc transplants often have been stressed, have been held in their containers too long and are rootbound, and have too many leaves, which I think means they are too old and are stressed by that.

When I used to buy broccoli transplants, the harvest was hit and miss---good some years and no Spring harvests in others. Now, with home-grown transplants, I only have a poor harvest if the usual summer heat arrives in March or April instead of in June. That just totally messes them up. If we start hitting the 90s in late March or early April, we can just kiss goodbye any chance we might have had of getting a harvest.

I have found that planting at just the right time helps, and it seems like the last 8-10 years, it has gotten harder and harder to pick the right time because the weather can be so erratic, and young transplants can have to deal with weather that is much too hot, dry and windy for them or much too cold, rainy and chilly. If ever there was a candidate for growing under low tunnels so you can control the growing conditions a bit more, broccoli is it.

Since Piricicaba does so well for you, you also might like Summer Purple, which is another sprouting broccoli. I believe its DTM is around 70 days, so it is later than my main crop broccoli (Packman) by a couple of weeks, and that is perfect so that we don't get all the broccoli at one time. Summer Purple is also an OP, so if you let some florets go to seed late in the season (ha! I said let them, and should say just try stopping them once it gets hot enough for them to bolt), you can save the seeds.

Cauliflower needs a longer season than we get here in OK most Springs, and is more likely to produce a crop in the fall, but we had a great cauliflower harvest last year. I want to say that I put the plants in the ground the last week of January, but then, last winter was extra warm here and we didn't have too much cold. Early Snowball is the variety that has done best for me in Spring. It is about 2 weeks earlier than regular Snowball or Snowball Y or whatever the latest version of the longer season Snowball is. Most years, if I get the cauliflower in the ground sometime from late January to late February, I'm harvesting the cauliflower heads sometime between late April and mid-May. If the heads aren't forming by sometimes in April, a harvest starts looking iffy, but it just depends on when the heat arrives. Cauliflower heads will not form if we get too hot too soon, though it isn't as picky as spring brussels sprouts are about the early arrival of heat.

For cabbage, try some of the mini varieties that Renee's Garden Seeds (and others) carry if you have any of those varieties. They are a lot earlier than the bigger heads, and less prone to splitting. I generally only grow early varieties because I like to get the sauerkraut fermenting before the kitchen gets too hot, since it faces west. I never have a problem getting cabbage, but I have a hard time keeping all the caterpillars off of it. Spraying regularly with Bt helps, but since Bt deteriorates quickly in sunlight, you have to spray, spray, spray and y'all know I hate spraying. So, last year I grew broccoli, brussels sprouts and cabbage all underneath two types of insect netting---MicroMesh and Biothrips Proteknet, so I could see how they worked. It was awesome! I had the netting suspended over hoops and was careful to avoid planting where I had brassicas the previous year. While we had plenty of the cabbage whites and other moths fluttering around the brassicas, none of them were able to lay eggs on the plants. I don't think I'll ever grow brassicas without MicroMesh again. Biothrips Proteknet works fine too, but I liked the Micromesh better. The lightweight row covers like the Agribon made for insect protection work well too, but I think more light gets through the netting, and the netting is sturdier and doesn't tear as easily.

It sounds like you have a great brassica line up planned for Spring. And, while Spring is indeed coming, I feel like it can't get here fast enough. Looking at the 10-day forecast makes me crazy. I wish it would warm up and just stay warm instead of turning back cold late next week and bringing us snow, ice or whatever the heck it ends up doing. Last winter's non-winter weather that persisted here much of the winter season completely spoiled me.

When I got up this morning and saw our official low temp was 2 and our lowest wind chill was -7, I thought I woke up in northern Oklahoma (though I realize your northerners likely were colder than us southerners). At our house we only got down to 5 degrees, and 5 degrees was plenty cold. I'm completely over winter, and since we got so little snow, it has pretty much melted away today in the glorious sunshine and if you're inside looking out---it looks great outdoors. It doesn't feel great, but warmer days are coming soon. Unfortunately wind also returns pretty strongly over the next few days, and it is too early for kite season.

Just a note, copied from wikipedia: Brassica oleracea is the species of plant that includes many common foods as cultivars, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, savoy, kohlrabi and kai-lan.

So the Happy Rich may be very different from the Kailaan.

Do you always start broccoli inside? Do you ever plant the seeds outside? I was not going to grow broccoli this year, but cleaned out my seed container and have a new packet of broccoli, so I will. What is too early?

I've never been very successful with broccoli, which is why I was not going to plant it this year.

My cabbage did great last year.

Happy Rich (and Atlantis and Apollo) all are listed as crosses of Broccoli x Gailan so I'd expect they'd be similar to the kailaan, basically just a different spelling which sometimes happens when plant names are translated from one laguage to another. I've sometimes seen them referred to as mini-broccoli's, which seems to keep them in that same group. Gailan plants would be Brassica oleracea var. alboglabran just like kailaan. At the rate they're crossing things with one another, I just classify them all in my brain as brassicas or crucifers and let the scientists and breeders worry about keeping the classifications and names straight. Spend too long looking at everything offered by Kitazawa or Evergreen Seeds in the greens/brassicas family and I start feeling like the more I know, the less I know.

Enablers, all of you.

Hazel, We were typing at the same time.

No, I do not, would not, will not direct sow broccoli (or most other brassica) seeds in the Spring, although some people do it with cabbage, and it generally works because most cabbage plants can tolerate June heat. It also works with collards.

The reason why we use transplants for crops like broccoli is that we always, always and without fail, are in a huge race to try to get our cool season crops to produce before enough heat arrives to shut them down, make them bolt, or cause them to have very unpleasant flavor. Starting seeds indoors at the right time and transplanting the plants into the ground at the right time is the key to getting a good harvest. You can be off some years by just a couple of weeks and get no harvest at all. Even worse, you have wasted garden space on a crop that failed to produce a harvest. Direct sowing in our climate doesn't work well with broccoli, cauliflower or brussels sprouts because there's not enough time in between that point where soil is warm enough for seeds to germinate and that point where it suddenly is too hot. That's why we don't direct sow some cool season crops---our cool season is shockingly short. That is why the OSU Garden Planning Guide, linked below, lists "plants" as the method to use when planting broccoli. If your chances of getting a crop from direct-sown seed were equally as good as getting them from transplants, the planning guide would so state as "seeds or plants" or something similar.

OSU Garden Planning Guide

Even with the cool-season crops that we do direct sow, like carrots, beets and spinach, sometimes the seeds are so slow to germinate in cold early Spring soil that we get a poor yield or no yield or maybe eventually a good yield that we've spent far too much time babying along in an effort to get that harvest before it gets too hot or too dry or too whatever.

In general, since you're in the middle part of the state, I'd aim at putting the broccoli plants in the ground in latest March or early April (later than OSU probably says but late freezes are hard on broc plants so I try to plant late enough to avoid late freezes) and expect a harvest around the end of May. If you want an earlier broccoli harvest, you'll have to put your transplants in the ground earlier and cover them up.

With the brassicas whose crops are the flower heads, like broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, exposure for even one week to temperatures below a certain level can cause the plants to produce button-sized heads or no heads at all, so we can't plant too early either. (This is because exposure to temperatures at a certain level once the plants are a certain size triggers these biennials to think they are in their second season and rush to go to seed.) It is like being Goldilocks, struggling to find a planting time that is just right since our weather doesn't make it easy. We hurt our chances of getting a harvest if we plant too early or too late or from seed instead of transplants or if the weather turns nastily cold after the plants are a specific size or if the weather gets too hot too early. Ha! Re-reading that makes me think we should be grateful to get any harvest at all because Oklahoma weather is notorious for changing on a dime.

If you can grow cabbage successfully, you can grow broccoli successfully. I generally transplant them into the ground at the same time. I have better luck with brussels sprouts and cauliflower if I transplant them much earlier than the cabbage and broccoli.

It can take a while (like, years and years, to be honest) to figure out the precise timing that works in your growing conditions, and you can't do it so much by the calendar as by soil temperatures/air temperatures because plants don't respond to calendar dates. They respond to specific climatic conditions. Every year after we moved here I tried one planting date after another to find the timing that worked for me in an average year, and it took just as much experimentation to find the planting dates that work in a year when we get hot early and when we stay really cold really late. The dates that worked in Texas didn't work so well for me here, and the dates recommended by OSU did not necessarily work in my microclimate and with our seemingly changing climate, so I just had to keep trying until I found what worked.

The OSU Planning Guide is great, but the plants don't read it and your microclimate as well as your weather in any given year will determine how well a specific planting period works for you. So, just experiment to find what works. Usually the dates that are best for me fall somewhere within the range given by OSU, but sometimes not. My microclimate stays shockingly cold some years very late so I have to plant some things, like broccoli, a bit later than recommended to account for that. It drove me nuts in the beginning, but I figured it out. You'll do the same.

Blame a lot of this struggle to plant at the right time on our climate. If we lived somewhere with a nice, cool summer, we could grow broccoli all summer long and get a nice harvest, but that's not our reality.

Dawn

Dawn, I missed out on the fall broccoli, but wanted to try some for spring. I have a small garden, so all space is at a premium, and I will probably need to use that spot for another late spring/early summer planted crop. I am willing to cover it with frost blankets (row covers that add a few degrees of protection), so how early do you think I could get transplants in the ground? I've looked at the OSU website, but just going by their recommendations, I start my stuff about a month earlier than recommended (as long as it isn't VERY tender), and cover it if necessary. The reason I ask is that I've not grown broccoli in many many years, and never in Oklahoma. I have no experience growing it here. I live close to Tulsa.

Thank you!

Mary

Mary, I have no experience with the weather any further north than where I live so am not sure what would be a good time to plant broccoli up there. Maybe someone else here who lives further north than I do will be able to tell you when they plant. I have had a lot of trouble with broccoli bolting if I plant it too early because our microclimate gets shocking cold at night even in mid- to late-Spring. So, I usually try to put 5-week-old plants in the ground around early April. I plant earlier if the nighttime temperatures allow, but never later or I run into heat issues later in Spring. I have planted as early as the beginning of March, but have had lots of cold weather damage and bolting when I do that. Much depends on the estimated DTM of your broccoli variety. I like to go with the early season ones that have DTMs of 50-60 days or so in order to get a good harvest. Anything with a DTM of 70 days or over is too late to produce for me, unless I plant it extra early and fight the cold nights. That is why so many people here in OK have trouble getting a broccoli harvest---if the cold weather early in the season doesn't hit and make the stuff form button heads, then often the heat arrives too early at the end of the season and makes the plants bolt. Still, after much experimentation with the best dates for my specific microclimate, I haven't lost a broccoli crop in years, except when the heat snuck in on us incredibly early. You just cannot do much to mitigate the effect of early heat.

I'm pretty sure I put last year's broccoli crop in the ground really early because we stayed so warm all winter long. Maybe in early March. I don't remember. I don't keep notes and the years all run together now in my memory. The cauliflower had a great spring crop too, which is what happens when the weather cooperates every now and then.

Dawn

Dawn, thank you. The OSU guide just gives March (no dates) as a planting guide, but based on the DTM, broccolli would be in the way of a more important later crop. So, I guess I'll have to put it back on the fall list.

You're welcome. It is a trial to try to squeeze everything into the available space, isn't it?

I just went looking for early broccoli. I found one called Blue Wind, 50 DTM. "Earlier than the Packman that it replaces". Why is packman being replaced? Where do you go to find such info? It's offered by Seminis, is that why? Anyhoo, it will be on my seeds n such late order, which better happen soon. Now on to the "C" veggies...

Packman is being 'replaced' by something they say is better, and for us there will be no choice about whether we go along with the change because Packman has been withdrawn from the market by the company that produces it. It is the nature of the beast. I suppose they think they must always be pushing for improvements in this or that and that we cannot be happy with something that has kept us happy for many years. I still have Packman seed and intend to use it up until it is all gone.

I grew Lieutenant last year, which Bonnie Plants says is their replacement for Packman, just to see how it compared to Packman, but it is a lot later to produce, which makes it iffy for us here, especially in years when the heat arrives early. (I'm thinking of 2011 when we were hitting the upper 90s during Easter Week early in April.) Blue Wind likely will be the go-to for southern gardeners, but there's other options including Castle Dome, Green Magic and Arcadia. I think Blue Wind and Castle Dome would have the DTMs closest to Packman. Anything that Farmerdill likes probably will grow here because, if anything, his climate probably is even more difficult than ours. We also have lots of options in sprouting broccoli as long as we can accept just harvesting many side sprouts instead of big central heads.

I think I still have about 1 1/2 packet of Packman (about 150 seeds). Dawn...Jungs is still offering it on their website if you want to stock up. I only grew it one year in both spring and fall. I didn't really have any reason to stop growing it but I wanted to try Bay Meadows and I like it a little better for my later broccoli

I think Arcadia is a better option for fall as it is advertised for superior cold tolerance. I grew it for the first time last fall and it did well but the heads/beads were not as tight as I like. I've read that Arcadia needs more boron than most broccoli to perform well so I am going to sprinkle a little Mule Team borax on the Arcadia bed next fall prior to planting. A little boron goes a long way and too much can contaminate the soil. From what I have read just 1/2 oz. is enough Borax for a 100 sq./ft. bed.

I grew Green Magic a few times which is supposed to have superior heat tolerance. Last year I transplanted some in mid April and it bolted about half way thru heading around June 10 when we abruptly went from spring weather to the mid 90s. I used the last of my Green Magic seed and probably won't grow it again.

Imperial is what Johnny's lists as best for heat tolerance but the 71 DTM is just too long for me to trust it in the spring. I don't think a broccoli exists that will tolerate 90+ for very long.

I am looking forward to growing a few Aspabroc that I ordered from Totally Tomatoes this spring. It is supposed to freeze better than regular heading broccoli.

Lone Jack, Thanks for the tip. I might stock up. However, I am a flexible person, and when Packman is gone, its gone, and I can just adapt and grow whatever else is available. I'm generally not married to a specific variety, except for County Fair cucumbers. I've got a 10-year-supply of County Fair in case they ever drop it. No other pickling cucumber I've grown has the disease tolerance package that County Fair has, though some of the others have done well in some years.

I think someone else here on this forum had trouble with Green Magic too. You wouldn't thing something as simple as broccoli would be so incredibly picky about weather, but it certainly is.

I grew Small Miracle and Early Dividend both for quite a while here when our garden was younger and smaller and space was more of an issue. They both did very well here and could be planted more closely together than some other broccoli varieties, which was a plus.

I agree about Imperial. Growing it here in Spring would be about as risky as growing brussels sprouts and cauliflower in Spring. I really try to stay in that 50-60 dtm window with broccoli varieties as much as possible.

The only way that I have had a broccoli tolerate 90 degrees (try 115 degrees) was with Piricicaba in the summer of 2011. I planted it at the far west end of the garden so it had morning sun and afternoon shade. We had the horrendous drought and it just sort of plodded along and didn't do much. Beginning in June, we had up to 5 wildfires a day, and some were multiday fires where we were back out in the same area with a big wildfire for 2 or 3 days in a row. I abandoned the garden. Stopped watering. Stopped harvesting. Pretty much forgot I had a garden after a certain point. We were having fires day and night and I was trying to sleep in between fires, when possible, so there wasn't even time for gardening. Most everything eventually died, though some of the tomatoes survived and set fruit in August (I give the extremely low humidity credit for that), some squash survived, the Seminole pumpkins survived and took over the whole garden, and......

In the fall, after the fires had tapered off and I had time to open the garden gate and go in there, I found Piricicaba broccoli plants thriving, with other drought killed plants sitting all around them. It was bizarre. To this day, I don't know if the broccoli plants died back to the ground (almost no rain for around 90 days and I stopped watering probably 45 days into that dry spell) and regrew in the fall from the roots, or if they sort of went dormant and just sat there until the weather got better or what. What did happen, though, after rain returned in the latter half of August is that the Piricicaba plants produced until December. It was so peculiar, and I was mostly too exhausted from the never-ending fire season and the drought and having to water the soil around the foundation of the house so that the foundation wouldn't crack, yada, yada, yada, that I never gave it too much thought or analysis. I just chalked it up to one of the bizarre gardening things that tend to happen here. Had I know that drought and abnormally dry conditions would continue throughout 2012, 2013 and 2014, I would have kept planting Piricicaba more than I did, but it attracts aphids like nothing else I've ever grown so I threw the seeds in the seed box and more or less forgot about Piricicaba.

Yes, borox a little goes a long way so don't overdo it! One box of Mule Team Borax will last a gardener here pretty much their entire life.

Dawn