How to Grow Broccoli & Cabbage

Yup, the Brassicas

Continuing our growing your own food at home series, The Tropical Grower is featuring How to Grow Broccoli & Cabbage this week.  Ahh, some Broccoli and Coleslaw.  If you’re a fan, these pop up easy and require only light work.  Repeat Harvesting is my biggest chore, of the Broccoli, not the Cabbage.  I’m not kidding.  Cabbage requires almost no work.

Broccoli and Cabbage come from a big family.  The Brassica.  Hard to pronounce too.  At a reunion, you’ll find Kale, Radishes, Turnips, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts, Arugula, Kohlrabi, Bok Choy, Wasabi, Horseradish, Collard Greens, Rutabaga, and Mustard.  Wow, right?  It’s like vegetable celebrity addition.  I actually think of Brassica as the family of Cold Weather Lovers.  While we do grow some of them in Our Garden in every season but July & August, all but the Broccoli and Cauliflower grow better in partial shade in our Tropical Zone.  It’s the wet heat. Brussel Sprouts are a mystery because I’ve never grown them, but I’ve been asked to try. So, maybe, I’ll have something to share around Jan.

Soil & Nutrients

Both Broccoli and Cabbage like a rich, well draining soil.  When I say rich, I mean it.  They want a heavy dose of nitrogen in the soil.  We use Sandy Compost with a dose of Black Cow in the soil mix.  If we are not planting a freshly mixed bed, we also add a dose of a granular vegetable fertilizer to the mix.  When I say heavy, I mean it.  Don’t overdose and burn your plants, but don’t skimp on the Nitrogen.

If you are growing organic, these rotate into your beds after the Legumes, the Beans and Peas.  Because the Legumes actually add Nitrogen to the soil, Broccoli and Cabbage will be happy with their leftovers.  For more on Crop Rotation: How to Ace Your Spring Planting Plan.

Water

The recommended dose of water is 1 to 2 inches per week, but both Broccoli and Cabbage prefer a consistently moist soil, not wet.  Plan on at least 2 inches a week, and reduce in 1/2 inch increments if it’s getting too much. In my experience, droopy plants generally mean too much heat, not water. If you are Growing Tropical, you can make a Woo-Hoo right now.  Anything that likes a consistently moist soil will be happy in the sandy wet Tropical Zone.  They won’t, however, like the heat. If you’re not Growing Tropical, make sure to add enough water.  You don’t want your soil drying out.  Everyone should make sure to add mulch.  In Tropical Zones, pull the mulch back away from your stems once the rains start to keep fungus and rot away. It’s going to happen. You just want to delay it as long as possible. Dang.

Seeds and Starter Plants

Brassica seeds, despite their tiny size, are some of the quickest sprouters.  In fact, our Broccoli sprouts in 1 to 3 days.  If it hasn’t come up by day 5, I drop more seeds.  The Cabbage is almost as quick with sprouts within the week.  It’s deceptive, a trick.  Because despite the quick sprouts, the plants take forever in the seedling/adolescent phase.  Just saying.  

Buying Starter Plants reduces the grow time in the garden.  Our 2nd season growing Broccoli, I purchased starter plants.  It saved 60 days outside.  If your time in the garden is limited, consider hitting fast-forward by purchasing Starter Plants.  Both Broccoli and Cabbage transplant well. 

Our Garden

We sprout Seeds inside and grow our own Starter Plants.  We like the variety.  Optimally, they would live in the indoor nursery for 60 days before planting outside.  But, isn’t there always a but?  The problem is these things like room to grow, and the nursery is for small plants, crowding is kind of expected.  The result is they can only survive healthy for about 30 days before they start turning scraggly, and I need the space.

Since these are Cold Weather Lovers, we plant before the sun hits the garden, preferably on a cloudy day.  Now, mind you, that’s optimal.  They’ve absolutely survived healthy planting in full sun on a 90 degree day.  That’s Growing Tropical.  Cloudy mornings are not the norm.  We get our clouds and storms in the afternoon.   For more See: How to Choose Between Seeds and Starter Plants.

Broccoli

Broccoli is one of my favorite grows in the garden.  It’s big.  It’s happy, and it makes me food most of the year.  Yup, I can’t wait to plant it in Sept because I know that big beautiful blueish-green baby will produce until July when the wet takes it.  It’s one of the best parts about Growing Tropical.  Not the wet taking it, the extended food producing time.  Just wanted to be clear.

Every single person in my family will eat Broccoli.  It makes it a winner in Our Garden.  I honestly thought I could not plant enough of it.  Nope.  9 plants are too many with our continuously producing Tropical crop.  Chuckling here.  Once the 1st Head or Heads are Harvested, no matter where I cut, it will continuously produce heads and medium to large florets until it kicks the bucket.  That is, of course, in addition to it’s big edible leaves.  Not getting enough Broccoli in your diet?  Add some Broccoli leaves to your salad.  Yum.  

Sun

Broccoli likes full sun, at least 6 hours if you are Growing Tropical, 8 otherwise.  However, my largest plant was getting 5 hours with heavy shading after 2 pm almost all winter. It gets a bit more now with the extended days.  You can’t argue with results.  It likes it there with intense morning sun, directly planted into the ground.  My 2nd largest, also a direct plant gets a full 6 hours.  Well, it did until the big South American tree lost all its leaves.  We’re hoping it will survive the next couple of weeks with way more sun than its used to until they grow back.  It’s always a little ‘hold-your-breath’ moment.  Sometimes stuff in this area dies.

The rest of our Broccoli plants are getting full sun this Spring.  It was by plan.  I fully expect, once the rains start in June, these will die.  I proved they will grow through the Fall/Winter and most of the Spring in actual Tropical Zone 10 full sun. All day.  There should be a ribbon.  No really, it’s more about knowing Our Garden and where things will grow.  It helps tons when you’re always trying to shuffle stuff around, and some of it has extended grow times like Broccoli. It’s going to be there almost a year.

Space Matters

The biggest mistake I made my first 2 seasons planting Broccoli was not giving it enough room to grow.  Yup, I crowded it.  Now, if you are in northern regions, they recommend 12”-15” for spacing between plants.  HA!  If you are Growing Tropical, double it, at minimum.  You’re going to need about 3 feet, all around.  If it doesn’t like that 3 feet, it will grow into one it does.  Seriously, these act like they are going to be a tree until about July.

Our largest plant is consistently between 4 ½ to 5 feet tall.  It stays about this size because we’re Harvesting it about twice a week.  The 2nd, 3 ½ to 4 feet tall.  Both these are directly planted in the ground.  The Raised Bed and Pot plants are all about 3 feet tall.  All the plants are spread out between 3 and 3 ½ feet.  It’s the way they grow here. It’s okay if it doesn’t grow the way they say it will. The key is knowing how it grows in your garden.   

Hooked Stems

If you’re expecting your Broccoli to grow straight up out of the planting hole, it hasn’t been my experience, but it is the norm. Most growers will get a fairly straight stem.  All our Broccoli grows with an ‘L” shaped main stem.  It grows out of the hole, then horizontally along the ground for a little, and back straight up or with a slight lean.  It’s like it needs that little piece of stem resting on the ground to support the weight.  When I planted it in pots, all but one grew exactly the same.  The one outlier grew horizontally out of the pot.  It’s currently blocking the entire walkway.  Goofball.  

Harvesting

Cut the stalk below the head when it has tight firm buds.  Yes, the thick meaty cylinder, hopefully, with leaves attached and the head on top.  My understanding from expert growers is you are supposed to cut it on a slant.   I haven’t found it makes much of a difference on my plants. I cut based on what I’m harvesting, taking up to 8” of stem or shoot with leaves on bigger heads, a few inches with florets or all the way back the main shoot or stem if there are many florets.  Because the leaves are so large, some kind of creative cut is involved.  Occasionally, a straight-cut is necessary.  The result is the same, more shoots come out in all directions.

You want to be careful not to take too much of your base plant, particularly the main stem, if you’re looking for more heads and florets.  Since this is the shoot factory, make sure you have enough space left for them to emerge.  Leave too much, and your new shoots will be competing for space with new ones emerging from the base.  While this seems like a good problem to have, your new shoots will all grow tiny heads, and you’ll be harvesting individual broccoli florets from each shoot instead of big dense heavy heads all at once from fewer shoots.  Up to you.  

Harvest to Healthy

Leaving at least two sets of the bottom leaves on your base stalk is the minimum to obtain a healthy plant.  We prefer to leave more rather than less, but we are Growing Tropical and things get big.  Trimming new shoots back to a few larger shoots at the main stem will encourage larger heads instead of many smaller ones.  The number of shoots with individual heads will depend entirely on the size of the plant.  

I toggled with this awhile until I got the feel for what was healthy.  Spindly is not healthy.  Tiny florets that resemble a castle tower of ole, light green buds, sagging, soft, all not healthy.  What I found was, if these have enough food, light, and water, I can cut what I want and they grow the exact right number of shoots for the area they have to grow.  No additional trimming necessary.  But we prefer a little larger heads, I trim small shoots.  

Harvest your heads while they are still green before the buds open and flowers emerge.  While we do eat the flowered heads, yum, you don’t want to leave flowering heads on your plant.  Dead spent flowers mean seeds. Seeds signal a plant its reached the end of its life.  You absolutely don’t want that unless you’re ready for it to go. 

Bugs and Maintenance

Yup.  Broccoli attracts bugs.  Do yourself a favor and plan for it.  The big low bushy leaves hold moisture and provide a perfect breeding ground for bugs, fungus, and disease.  These leaves need to be removed all the time as they yellow or attract munchers.  We treat the yard, never any bed growing food, as a deterrent and treat infestations on plants with an organic oil, currently, Fungicide3.

You also have to keep up with harvesting or they flower and seed.  And, ours at least, like to take over the garden, so shaping and training that never works is required if you are Growing Tropical.  Did I scare you?  We consider continually Harvesting and picking off big leaves low maintenance.  And Yeah, these are easy grows if not super easy grows.  They just require a little steady attention like tomatoes.

Cabbage

With Cabbage, the old saying, ‘Slow and Steady Wins the Race’, absolutely applies.  These either rotate out in 4 to 5 months for both Fall/Winter and Spring in Our Garden, or they grow for over a year before forming a head.  But Growing Tropical has interesting twists for Cold Weather Lovers.  The heat and wet doesn’t usually kill Cabbage.  It just keeps them from forming heads until it likes the conditions. 

We had a great crop of Green and Red Cabbage heads as well as a leaf Michihili Chinese Cabbage for most of the Winter/Spring.  The heads, planted late due to Hurricane Ian, started producing in Jan/Feb.  Cut, we got another round from most of them in April/May.  The Michihili is like a hearty lettuce, and we Harvested the outer leaves for a steady supply.

Heads vs. Chinese Varieties

Heads are exactly what they sound like, a round head of tightly wrapped fleshy leaves.  For those of us who grew up with Cabbage Patch Kids, we know exactly what Cabbage heads are supposed to look like, baby dolls.  Chuckling, here.  There is a reason they are called heads.  

The Chinese Varieties don’t make hard round heads.  The ones we’ve grown are more like big lettuce leaves and Harvested just the same.  They are also not fleshy.  While head Cabbage has thick fleshy, and quite crunchy when properly grown and Harvested, leaves, the Chinese varieties don’t have a fleshy feel.  They are milder like a crisp lettuce leaf or a soft Kale.  Both are delicious.

Sun

Sun is tricky with Cabbage. For you northern growers, full sun is recommended, at least 8 hours. We can also grow it in full sun here in our Tropical Zone during the Fall/Winter. The problem is it’s a cold weather plant and heat isn’t its friend. For Spring, we shade ours in the afternoons. If you’re Growing Tropical, I would recommend finding something bigger to the east to provide it some shade. Our Red Acre Cabbage got pretty burnt up after the 1st Harvest in the blazing sun. The bug oil didn’t help.

The Chinese Varieties grow pretty much the same. Ours started flowering in Feb when we had the unusually hot 90 degree temperatures. I Harvested the flower stalks and stuck them in vases when I took the outer leaves. Since these didn’t turn bitter, we continued to Harvest until a couple of weeks ago, the beginning of May. The flowers are pretty.

Compact Grow

Smooth Green Cabbage doesn’t need a big area to grow.  It will stay in a simple 1 foot area.  While most of you northern growers are saying, duh, this is some helpful news to Tropical Growers where plants tend to take off.  I have easily planted these in the gallon Wall Pots for the Row Crop Raised beds very successfully.  The Red Acre variety will need a little more room, but they only took up about 18 inches a piece this year in the raised beds.  

Depending on where you are growing them, the Chinese varieties will be bigger grows.  You should plan a 2 foot area if you are Growing Tropical.  If not, plan a really big lettuce variety.  They will grow similarly.

Harvesting

Leaf or Chinese varieties are Harvested just like lettuce.  You can cut about ½ the plant when it reaches maturity and grow another round or you can Harvest the large leaves from the outside/bottom as needed.  You can also take the whole plant.  Ours bolted pretty quickly, but a trim of the flowers kept it going for months while we Harvested the outside leaves for salads.  It can also be cooked like Kale.

Head varieties are ready to harvest when their center heads are round and firm.  The center leaves will form a hard ball.  You can grow them to size, but be careful.  If you wait too long, your heads will split.

Cut the main stem of head Cabbage leaving the bottom stem and at least 2 leaf sets, although the more the better.  I leave whatever is loose at the bottom.  If you have enough grow season left, it should produce new smaller heads.  Cut an ‘X’ in the main stem about an inch deep to form 4 new heads, or trim back to 3 or 4 healthy ones and harvest when each of these become hard, usually a tennis ball size.  Or, yes, there’s more, you can Harvest the whole plant either after the 1st or 2nd grow.

Storage      

Cabbage heads will last longer if you harvest the whole plant, folding a few of the outer leaves around the heads.  Some growers wrap them in newspaper and store them in the cellar until Spring.  Seriously.  That would never happen for us.  First, we don’t have cellars in our area, the water table is too high.  Fun Florida Facts.  We also don’t grow enough to store that long.  However, we do know it keeps in the fridge for a long time.  Months. As we lost one back there once.   

Bugs and Maintenance

Just like Broccoli, Cabbage is prone to bugs.  We treat around raised beds and use an organic combination pesticide/fungicide, for infestations.  We’re currently using Fungicide3, just like for the Broccoli.  But be careful, using organic pesticide means oil.  These can and will burn your leaves in the full sun.  Cloudy days are your friend.  I’m more likely to burn up the plant if I have to resort to pesticides here in our Tropical Growing Zone. Bug free, but burnt to a crisp.

Otherwise maintenance on Cabbage is a breeze.  On occasion, I have to remove bottom leaves, usually when they start capturing and holding water.  They don’t really need anything extra but weed removal. We like that.

Broccoli and Cabbage

Growing Broccoli and Cabbage is extremely satisfying.  While we do get bugs, treatment is usually successful.  And we always get food.  Lots of it.