Planting broccoli

Planting broccoli like all other vegetables, does require a little aforethought. The first is what variety you are going to choose; some do better in the cooler-weather, others in the summer. Talk to your nurseryman.

This page was last updated by Bernard Preston on 19th April, 2021.

Then there is another important question; do you want the heading-type, or the variety that branches? Both have their virtues, and actually I grow both.

The heading-variety means that you reap the crop once, and then pull the plant out, ready for the next vegetable; they will not branch.

The branching-variety goes on bearing for months, so it takes up more garden space, but you have a long period of broccoli for your pleasure and well-being.

Another disadvantage, if you find walking to the garden to reap your supper tedious, is that plucking the smaller florets from the branching-type may take you five minutes, but the heading kind needs only thirty seconds to harvest, albeit once off.

The first picking of branching broccoli will be fairly large like that above, but still much smaller than the heading type.

Then for months you'll go on getting these smaller florets. So before planting broccoli, make a decision. If you have a larger garden, I recommend both.

There's no doubt that planting broccoli and other vegetables for your table requires a different mindset. It means a conscious change from "drat, I have to go and pick the veggies," to "ah, ten minutes of bliss in the garden," away from the hustle and bustle of whatever; that is what today is being called forest-bathing. Leave the cellphone behind.

Pulling frozen broccoli from the freezer, washed and neatly-sized may be a lot easier. But it won't taste half as nice, will certainly not be nearly as nutritious, and is probably loaded with pesticides.

Plus if you're a greenie, you can plant your broccoli in compost instead of using inorganic fertilizers; or a bit of both.

Glucoraphanin

Glucoraphanin is just one of the important active-ingredients; there are many benefits of planting broccoli.

Another is lutein; a deficiency is the prime cause of age-onset blindness. Lutein macular degeneration is a subject for all of us to understand.

One of the other advantages of the branching type is that researchers have found that the smaller florets are even richer in glucoraphanin, the anti-tumour photochemical found mainly in broccoli.

Read more about it at our broccoli facts page.

Copy and paste "broccoli facts" into this search engine for more information.

Planting broccoli

Planting broccoli is really easy.

The seed germinates very quickly; these were planted two weeks ago, the boss tells me. Behind in the box are parsley and spring onions that are more laggardly.

As a general rule, I prefer to plant directly into the ground.

Transplanting seedlings I find laborious and it sets them back by at least a week or two. You need to shade them and generally fuss over your little-plants.

Planting them directly in the ground gets you around the fag of all this.

However because broccoli plants grow about 18" apart, it means a long tenuous line, with a tiny seed perhaps every foot, and you may need to thin them.

She who must obeyed prefers planting them in a seed-box; that way too you can keep them in a warm sunny place in early spring, and bring them indoors, or cover them at night if a late frost threatens.

It's August now in the southern hemisphere but we could still have another frost.

Then it's a case of digging a trench that you fill with compost; it's probably physically the most difficult part of organic-gardening, excellent exercise but doing back and shoulder stretches before starting is vital. Otherwise you'll be keeping your DC in business.

You can forgo the trench and perhaps just fork in a small spadeful of humus for each plant. It depends on how busy you've been building a compost-pile, and how much time and energy you have for the garden.

Actually I'm looking now at a new system; a portable chicken tractor. The chooks will turn any green material we feed them into manure, obviating the need to dig these trenches; it really is heavy-work and probably quite unnecessary.

This is one of many but our choice chicken tractor design; I made mine from electrical conduit so it's easy to move. The farmyard calls add a new peaceful dimension to life.

Full-sun for planting your broccoli plants, please; this year, with crop rotation, it's in the sweet potato patch. Dig trenches if you have plenty of compost, and a strong back, or just a spadeful in each hole.

Last year in this patch I planted broad beans to put fertiliser back into the soil; it's the richest plant-protein too, with prevention of Parkinson's disease to boot. I lament with Jamie Oliver that farmers grow them for nitrogen but the British no longer enjoy them and they mostly get ploughed in. 

Read more about this precious legume at how to plant broad beans; they are also known as favas. Rotational planting is important. In 2019 we followed them with peppers that are so rewarding and the richest source of beta-carotene.

Preventing a beta carotene deficiency is vital for our health; there's plenty in your greens like broccoli too. 

Eggs Florentine

Eggs Florentine takes less than ten-minutes from start to finish; a little longer if you are picking the spinach and a couple of the florets from planting broccoli.

You may well think I'm a crank; a bit of a fruitcake.

It's probably true, but in my defense, we have had so many tumours in the family, so much agony, expense and premature-death, that I make the time to do these fruity things.

I'd rather spend the time on prevention by planting broccoli, and a lot else besides; the taste is amazing, in any case. The alternative is the real possibility of wasting it in the years to come on chemotherapy.

First drop a lump of butter in a pot, then an onion and, if you like it hot, a jalapeno; I do.

Eggs Florentine is based on a bed of spinach. Wash the leaves thoroughly; you'll soon see the bugs also know what's good for them, and not just Popeye and me.

Here is an aside; when you buy food at the greengrocer, and it is absolutely perfect, you know it has been sprayed with toxic-poisons. I have deliberately chosen a holy leaf; the housewife's taster has been and declared it wholesome. You can see a slip of cilantro too.

And now for the fruity part of Bernie Preston, lover of life, and scared-stiff of tumours. Toss your chopped spinach on the onions, add the broccoli florets and anything else interesting in the garden. In this case, it's fresh green peas.

Plop on your two eggs, cut a couple slices of sourdough bread for the toaster, smother with butter and you have the perfect eternal-life food. I'd rather aim at 100 and fall short by ten or twenty years, than neglect my body and die in misery in my fifties or sixties.

Oh there's garlic in there too, as you can see.

Broccoli and eggs are loaded with folate, vitamin B12 and zinc; and magnesium too. They are the vital elements to immediately metabolise toxic homocysteine in your body; it's a breakdown-product of protein metabolism and responsible for many very serious illnesses.

Read more at homocysteine cardiovascular.

And of course all that glucoraphanin to keep the big C at bay.

We've recently launched the new chicken tractor that can be dragged around the garden. Research shows that free range eggs have three times as much omega-3; that's the stuff that reduces inflammation in your body.

There's no cigar for guessing which of the above comes from our free range eggs.

Kaempferol is a carotenoid that is found in many greens including broccoli, now proven to enhance our well-being and help prevent illness.

Planting broccoli and the other greens is so important in our family. Like the apple, they keep the doctor away.

You are probably saying you don't possibly have the time for this crazy stuff. Well, I did double up with some quality bonding time with my six year old granddaughter. We spied a bee-eater that can devastate my colonies, a red eyed bulbul snacking on cape gooseberries and she was delighted to find the first poppy of the season.

It may come as a surprise but new research shows the there is a broccoli osteoarthritis connection; drug companies are licking their lips in anticipation of synthesizing and persuading your doctor to prescribe exorbitant amounts of money for glucoraphanin; we would rather get busy with planting dark-green leafy vegetables.

Ten minutes?

• Ten-minutes to pick the broccoli, jalapeno and spinach; and green-peas too. And watch the apple of my eye pick that poppy for granny.
  
• Two-minutes to slice the onion and drop it into the pot with a smidgen of dairy; yes, butter is back. Research shows that it's the trans fats that do the damage, and refined carbs that add on the pounds, not the good suet. Use olive oil if you prefer.
  
• Perhaps five-minutes to wash the greens and pod the peas.
  
• Two-minutes to steam, add the eggs and slice the bread for the toaster.
  

About twenty-minutes of sheer pleasure once you get your mind around the idea what preparing good food is not time wasted; on a Saturday-morning, with no patients I have a bit of extra time.

• What foods have trans fat?

Copy and paste "hydrogenated foods" into this search engine for more information.

You can spy the beehives in the background. They just love the yellow flowers that will be appearing when the branching-broccoli gets ahead of us.

Incidentally don't let your hens into the broccoli patch. They will strip the leaves in no time; instinctively they know where well-being is to found.

Best chicken feed must include a source of greens; that's where they get the omega-3 that makes free-range eggs so valuable.

Choice foods

Choice foods are not an option is we want to live long, pain-free lives; planting broccoli is just one consideration if you love fresh veggies.

The highly inflammatory food that so many eat today is one of the reasons why we have so many aches and pains; add to that trauma and subluxations and you'll have a nightmare that your DC cannot easily fix. Nor can the surgeon.

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Start this week by adding just one fresh green every day to your meals; something like spinach, lettuce (not iceberg) or broccoli.

Your organic green foods make a wonderful start to a new more vibrant lifestyle.

Then move away from seed oils to cold pressed extra virgin olive oil; wonderful stuff. Nutritious foods may cost a little more, but once you factor in the dollars associated with sickness from a junk diet, then they're dirt cheap.

I'm convinced that it is eating these choice foods are the reason I consult doctors less than once a year, and then usually for a speck of brick dust in the eye after angle grinding! Thank goodness my house is now built and I can spend time doing the fun things instead of chasing walls.

Mind you, I am about to install new solar panels on a west facing roof; it's a little experiment to produce more power in the late afternoon. This has proved an outstanding success.

Choice foods will save you a mint, and planting broccoli is queen of the anti-tumour brigade.

• West facing solar panels.

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