Broccoli Growing Tips
Broccoli is a cool-season crop that loves the sun! It is best grown in the spring or fall and food growers try to fit it into their planting schedule because it is incredibly healthy. It is a good source of vitamins and minerals.
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Broccoli is a cool-season crop that loves the sun! It is best grown in the spring or fall and food growers try to fit it into their planting schedule because it is:
Incredibly healthy
A good source of Vitamin A, potassium, folic acid, iron, and fiber.
Once you harvest the main head of a broccoli plant, it will often keep producing smaller side shoots. Summer heat can cause bolting, so grow in spring and fall.
Broccoli is attacked by multiple pests and diseases in the Chicago area. Many local home gardeners in or around Chicago have given up growing broccoli and focus instead on other greens like kale, Swiss chard, Chinese cabbage, Chinese broccoli and Bok Choy. See a visual guide to 10 varieties of Asian greens at https://www.thekitchn.com/a-visual-guide-to-10-varieties-of-asian-greens-98840 Article “What is Chinese cabbage?” is at https://www.thespruceeats.com/chinese-cabbage-info-694681
Prevent clubroot: Broccoli is prone to a root fungus called clubroot that can be prevented by careful planting and planning.
WARNING: clubroot fungus is extremely contagious and can be spread to other plants with hands, tools, and anything that comes into contact with it. Also, it can come with seedlings that you purchase from garden centers - and once you have it in your raised bed, there is no way to get rid of it. Don’t worry about it attacking other plants in your bed - they are safe, So, beware of these risks and consider if it might be worth it to consider an alternative veggie.
Plant in a space that was not previously used for a cabbage family crop. The fungus stays in the soil over the winter.
Sterilize the soil to kill the clubroot fungus if your broccoli planting area is small and you don’t have other spaces you can use instead. Heating the soil to 200º should work.
New Service
Get your lists of questions ready…
We are very excited to be able to offer customers personalized garden mentoring with our new team member and Kitchen Gardening Guru, Raffa Crevosay, Horticulturist and Certified Crop Adviser. We will send details about our Soil Health/Garden Coaching services soon. If you’d like details ASAP, write lesley[at]deep-roots-project.org an please put “coaching” in the subject line.
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Happy Worm Day – oops – EARTH DAY!
If we can encourage eaters who care to grow some of their own food and follow natural processes that use earthworms to replenish the earth with a diversity of microflora – there is hope for Mother Earth. And for the future of Humankind.
Mother Earth’s Best Friends
If they could tell us, earthworms would want a day dedicated entirely to them. They really do kind of deserve one – but to us Earth Day and Worm Day are practically the same thing! Which is why we created this banner (be sure to check our store soon for our popular (sold out) Worm Friend posters).
Worms and Soil Health. Our Health. Planet Health.
We know the link between the future of the Earth and earthworms is not obvious to everyone – but we want a new generation of organic kitchen gardeners to “get it”. We want growers of food to understand the interconnectedness of Soil Health. Our Health. Planet Health.
On this Earth Day and every April 22 each year – we want growers of food (urban and rural) to ask themselves this question:
Would there be a future for Mother Earth without earthworms?
Mother Earth’s future is linked to choices that individual “growers” will make about the way they prepare (and respect) their soil. From farmers tending to large industrial agribusinesses to individual rural or urban kitchen gardeners – if they practice what Raffa Crevoshay, our DRP soil guru, calls transformative agriculture – the planet will have a chance.
If we can encourage eaters who care to grow some of their own food and follow natural processes that use earthworms to replenish the earth with a diversity of microflora – there is hope for Mother Earth. And for the future of Humankind.
On April 22 each year – Deep Roots Project will create stimulating and fascinating educational materials that will help DRP organic kitchen gardeners, students in elementary school, high school and universities and restaurant chefs, ordinary organic kitchen gardeners – and ordinary citizens too - to admire worms’ contribution to soil health – and Mother Earth’s future and to our future!
Let’s make every Earth Day – Worm Day too!
Read more the Holy Grail of organic farming.