Phoenix Bird

SAVING SEEDS - BROCCOLI

By: Ron

The One Who Walks Two Paths

Somewhere around my desk here is the info on the cancer-fighting properties of broccoli. Augh, well if I truly ever got 100% organized I would be dangerous (or not be able to find a thing) 😏

We seem to have a love-hate relationship with broccoli, meaning some of us love it and the rest hate it. 😏 For all of us who have grown broccoli you know the anticipation of just the right time can be frustrating at best. If you wait too long the buds start to break, not long enough and the head is small. What's a person to do?

I try to plant my broccoli the first weekend in March in the greenhouse. I like to have the transplants around 4-5 inches high; any higher and they are likely to be stunted. I try to plant the transplants around the second weekend in April and I baby them at night if there is a chance of frost (2-3 times a week it seems like). I mulch heavily around the plants and at night, depending on the temps, I will pull the mulch up around the plants.

Broccoli likes cool weather, but when they are young they can be killed easily. Once the heads form I check morning and then at night for color change. What I am looking for is the change from dark green to a lighter green anywhere on the head, and as soon as I see that I harvest. After harvest the plant will send up little side shoots with small broccoli heads on them these shoots are fast growing and in a matter of a few hours can start to turn yellow and start to flower. Now I will go out and harvest all the side shoots that are bigger than a golfball. the others I leave to go ahead and flower and set seed. Now you really only need one plant to get enough seed for next year but I advocate letting all the plants set seed for a very good reason . Sprouts. The enzyme responsible for the cancer fighting ability of broccoli is at the highest level at the sprout stage. The point before the first true leaves appear.

To save the seed once the flowers fade you will get a thin 1 - 1-1/2 inch long pod. Once the pods form I take pantyhose and secure them around the stems to catch the seed. sometime towards the end of July the plant will start shedding the seed and at this point I will cut the stems and bundle them up and hang them in the garage to dry. Once the plants become brittle I then separate the seed form the chaff and bottle in one of my handy dandy film containers. the best way of separating the chaff I have found is to drop the seed from one container to another from a height of about a foot (make sure you do this out of the wind ) the seed falls and the chaff drifts away. After several times the seed is pretty clean ( by now I think you all get the idea that it is not possible to get any type of vehicle in my garage in the summer and fall ) The plants are chopped up into the compost pile and the beds replanted with lettuce or other fast growing crop.

Now here in zone 5 I can get a fall crop of Broccoli by planting seeds again by the second week of august and planting the transplants out the first weekend of September with a harvest in October. You really can't depend on fall broccoli to get seed from as the growing time is short.

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