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Want to grow **huge, healthy broccoli crowns** right in your own garden? 🥦 In this video, I’ll show you **3 easy-to-follow tips** that can help your broccoli grow bigger, stronger, and produce beautiful, tightly packed heads.
You’ll learn how to give broccoli the right growing conditions, what mistakes can lead to small crowns, and simple techniques you can use to improve your harvest. Whether you’re growing broccoli in raised beds, containers, or directly in the ground, these tips are easy enough for any gardener to follow.
🌱 In this video:
🥦 How to encourage bigger broccoli crowns
💧 Proper watering for healthy growth
🌿 Feeding and soil tips for stronger plants
⚠️ Common broccoli-growing mistakes to avoid
✂️ Tips for getting the best possible harvest
Try these simple gardening tips and see how much bigger your broccoli can grow!
#Broccoli #GardeningTips #GrowBroccoli #VegetableGarden #Gardening #HomeGarden #OrganicGardening
Want to grow **huge, healthy broccoli crowns** right in your own garden? 🥦 In this video, I’ll show you **3 easy-to-follow tips** that can help your broccoli grow bigger, stronger, and produce beautiful, tightly packed heads.
You’ll learn how to give broccoli the right growing conditions, what mistakes can lead to small crowns, and simple techniques you can use to improve your harvest. Whether you’re growing broccoli in raised beds, containers, or directly in the ground, these tips are easy enough for any gardener to follow.
🌱 In this video:
🥦 How to encourage bigger broccoli crowns
💧 Proper watering for healthy growth
🌿 Feeding and soil tips for stronger plants
⚠️ Common broccoli-growing mistakes to avoid
✂️ Tips for getting the best possible harvest
Try these simple gardening tips and see how much bigger your broccoli can grow!
#Broccoli #GardeningTips #GrowBroccoli #VegetableGarden #Gardening #HomeGarden #OrganicGardening
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Broccoli is one of those crops that folks either grow beautifully or fail at entirely with not
00:06much in between. And the strange thing is that the ones who fail are usually doing almost
00:12everything right. They tend it faithfully and still they end up with a spindly little plant
00:17and a head no bigger than a walnut. Or worse, a plant that shoots up and bursts into yellow
00:23flowers before it ever makes a head at all. And they cannot for the life of them understand what
00:28went wrong. Well, I can tell you what went wrong, for it nearly always comes down to just three
00:35things. And if you get these three right, you will grow broccoli heads so big and so firm you can
00:42scarcely get your hand around the stalk. So today I am going to give you those three, the three that
00:48truly matter. My name is Elias Yoder and I farm here in Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. And broccoli
00:56is a fine and generous crop when you understand it, hardy against the cold, rich and good on the
01:02table. And it will even keep feeding you long after you have cut the main head, as I will tell
01:08you at
01:08the end. But you must give it the three things it asks, and it asks them firmly, for broccoli is
01:15not
01:15a shy or forgiving plant. Get the three right though, and it is one of the most rewarding things in
01:21the
01:21whole garden. I remember the first broccoli I ever tried to grow as a young man, so proud of it,
01:27and I
01:27planted it too late in the spring, and it sat there through the first hot spell of summer, and shot
01:33straight up into a great spray of yellow flowers before it ever made me a head at all. I stood
01:39looking
01:39at it, not understanding what I had done. My grandfather came by and looked at it and did not laugh,
01:45though he
01:45might have. He just said, you asked it to make a head in the heat, and it did the only
01:51thing a flower
01:51knows to do when it gets warm. It bloomed. Plant it so it heads in the cool, he told me,
01:58and it will
01:58hold. I did, the next fall, and I have grown fine broccoli ever since. Before I go on, I will
02:06say this
02:07once and then leave it be. I gathered the whole of it, all these old ways of growing your own
02:12food,
02:13into a book. You can find it at EliasYoder.com. The book is the long version. If you want it,
02:20it is there. I will not mention it again. Now the first of the three, and the one that ruins
02:26more
02:26broccoli than all else put together, is the timing. And to understand the timing, you must understand
02:33one plain fact about what broccoli is, for everything hangs on it. That green head of broccoli
02:39you eat is not a fruit and not a root. It is a great cluster of flower buds. Thousands of
02:46tiny
02:46little unopened flower buds, all packed tight together, caught and held right at the moment
02:52before they bloom. That is what you are eating, a bouquet of buds gathered just before they open.
02:58And once you understand that, you understand the whole danger of the crop. For a flower bud has one
03:04thing it desperately wants to do, and that is to open and flower. What holds those buds closed,
03:11tight and green and good to eat, is cool weather. Broccoli is a cool season crop through and through,
03:18and it wants to grow and head up in the cool of the year. But let the heat climb. Let
03:24a stretch of
03:24hot days come while that head is forming, and the plant panics and rushes those buds open,
03:29shooting up and bursting into a spray of little yellow flowers. We call that bolting, and a bolted
03:36broccoli is ruined for eating, gone bitter and loose and flowery. So the whole art of the timing
03:42is to arrange things so that your broccoli comes to its head in the cool and never has to try
03:48to make
03:48that head in the heat. And that tells you plainly when to plant. You do not want your broccoli maturing
03:54in the heat of high summer. You want it heading up in the cool, either in the gentle cool of
04:00spring
04:00before the summer heat arrives, or, and this is the surer way by far, in the cooling weather of the
04:07fall
04:07as the summer heat is dying away. The fall crop is the finer one, for it heads up into weather
04:13that
04:14only grows cooler and kinder as it goes, with no heat waiting to ruin it. So for a fall crop,
04:21you count back from when your cold weather comes, and plant so the broccoli has time to grow up and
04:27head before the hard freeze, but so it is maturing in that cool autumn air. If you are setting out
04:34young plants rather than sowing seed, you need a bit less time, six or eight weeks before your frost.
04:41Get that timing right so it heads in the cool, and you have won the greatest part of the battle.
04:47Now a good word here on the cold, for folks worry about frost on their broccoli, and mostly they
04:53need not. Broccoli is hardy, and a light frost does it no harm at all. In fact, a touch of
05:00frost
05:00can sweeten it. So when the first light frosts of fall come, you can leave your broccoli stand right
05:07through them, unbothered. It is only a hard, deep freeze, the bitter cold that drops well below freezing,
05:15that will damage it, and against that you simply throw an old sheet or a light cloth over the plants
05:21of an evening to keep the worst off. The same as I have told you for the other fall crops.
05:26A light frost,
05:28leave it be. A hard freeze, throw a cloth over it. That is all the cold-minding a broccoli asks.
05:35Now the second of the three, and this one is absolutely crucial, so hear me well, for it is
05:42the difference between that walnut-sized head and the great one you cannot get your hand around.
05:48You must feed your broccoli, and feed it hard, for broccoli is one of the very hungriest plants
05:54in the whole garden. It is a heavy, heavy feeder. Think of what you are asking it to do, to
06:00build
06:01that thick, stout stalk, and all those great blue-green leaves, and then that huge, dense head,
06:08all in a matter of weeks. That takes a tremendous amount of feeding, and a broccoli grown in poor,
06:14thin soil simply cannot do it, and gives you a poor, thin little head to match. So you must make
06:21its
06:21ground rich, and then keep it fed as it grows. Here is how I do it. Long before I set
06:28the plant,
06:28I make its bed rich and deep, working in a great generous helping of good aged manure and rich
06:35compost, for that mix of rotted manure and compost is the finest feeding there is, and broccoli loves
06:42it above all. Well-rotted horse or cow manure, or a good mushroom compost if you have it, dug in
06:49deep
06:50and plentiful. And when I set each young plant, I dig its hole, and I work a good handful more
06:57of rich
06:57compost or old manure right down into the bottom of the hole beneath it, so its roots grow straight
07:03down into a store of feeding. That alone, a rich bed and a fed hole, will often carry a broccoli
07:11the
07:11whole way to a great head with no more asked. But watch your plants as they grow, for they will
07:18tell you
07:18if they want more. If your broccoli starts to look pale, the leaves going a little yellow,
07:24or if it seems to have stalled and is not growing on strong and fast, that is a hungry plant
07:30asking
07:30to be fed. So give it a good drink of manure tea or a fish emulsion, something rich and strong,
07:37to push it along, and it will green right up and drive on. Feed it rich to start, and feed
07:43it more if it
07:44asks, and you will grow a stalk you can scarcely close your hand around. And the third of the three
07:50is the watering, and here the rule is steadiness. Broccoli wants plenty of water, and it wants it
07:57even and steady, never a feast and never a famine. When your plant is young and first getting established,
08:04in its first several weeks, you water it well and often, several times a week, a good soaking each time,
08:11not a little sprinkle. For a broccoli getting its start is thirsty and building its roots.
08:17Then, as it grows on and matures, you can water a little less often but deeper each time, a good
08:24long soaking that sends the water down deep and draws the roots down after it, keeping the soil evenly
08:31moist all the way down. The one thing you are always after, young or grown, is soil that stays evenly
08:38damp,
08:39moist like a rung sponge, never baked dry, and never turned to swamp. And here is a thing worth knowing,
08:48for it saves confusion. A yellowing leaf on a broccoli can mean too little water, but it can also mean
08:56too
08:56much, and folks get fooled by that. If you let it go too dry, it yellows and suffers, and that
09:04is the
09:04commoner trouble. But if you drown it, keeping the soil soaking wet and airless, the roots cannot breeze
09:12down there in the waterlogged ground, the near suffocate, and then, too, the leaves go yellow and
09:19wilty, and the plant sickens. So the mistake runs both ways, and the answer to both is the same, that
09:27steady, even moisture, damp but never sodden, and good draining soil beneath, so the water never stands.
09:35Water deep, water even, and let it drain. So there are your three that matter most. Time it to head
09:45up in
09:45the cool, never the heat, so it does not bolt. Feed it rich and hard, for it is a hungry,
09:53hungry plant.
09:54And water it steady and even, damp but never drowned. Get those three, and the great firm head is near
10:04guaranteed. Now let me give you two more things before I finish, for they round out the growing. The
10:12first is a plain word on harvest, for folks often wait too long and lose the head. Remember what broccoli
10:20is, a cluster of buds caught just before they open. So you must cut that head while it is still
10:28tight
10:28and firm, and the buds all closed up, small and green. The moment you see those buds beginning to
10:36loosen, to swell and separate, to show the least hint of yellow, cut it at once, that very day, for
10:45it is on
10:45the very edge of flowering, and every day past its time it grows looser and poorer. Cut it firm and
10:54tight,
10:55in the cool of the morning, taking a good length of the stalk with it, and it will be sweet
11:01and dense
11:02and fine. And here is the second thing, the bonus, and it is one many folks never learn, so they
11:09pull up
11:10their plant the moment they cut the main head and throw away half their crop. Do not pull it up.
11:17For most kinds of broccoli, after you cut that big main head in the center, the plant is not done,
11:24not by a long way. It will turn its strength to the buds down along the sides of the stalk,
11:31and send up a whole succession of smaller side heads, little broccoli shoots, for weeks and weeks
11:39after. They are not so big as the main head, but they are just as good eating, tender and sweet,
11:46and they come on and on. So the moment you cut your main head, keep feeding and watering that plant,
11:54and it will feed you a steady picking of side shoots long after, right up until the hard cold.
12:02One broccoli plant, well kept, gives you the great head, and then weeks of little ones besides.
12:09That is why you never pull it after the first cutting. Let me say a plain word about who profits
12:16from you not knowing these three, and it is no dark scheme. Broccoli is dear at the store, one of
12:24the
12:24pricier vegetables there is, and folks buy it head by head all year long. And there is no money in
12:32a
12:33man learning that a few cents of seed, a rich bed, and the right timing would grow him great heads
12:40of
12:40it, and then weeks of side shoots on top for near nothing. Nobody earns a wage teaching you to grow
12:48your
12:48own broccoli and keep it feeding you for a month off one plant. There is no head to sell in
12:55that.
12:56So folks try broccoli once, get a poor bolted little nothing because nobody told them about the heat or
13:04the feeding, and give up and go back to buying it, believing they cannot grow it, when three plain rules
13:11would have given them all they could eat. It is not hidden, it is only never taught,
13:18for a garden full of broccoli is a store's steady loss. The money runs toward the head on the shelf,
13:25and away from the seed in your ground, and it always has. So there is the whole of it. Time
13:33your
13:34broccoli to head up in the cool of spring, or better, the cooling fall, so the heat never makes it
13:41bolt.
13:41Feed it rich and heavy in a bed deep with compost and manure, and fed more if it asks,
13:47for it is among the hungriest crops there is. Water it steady and even, damp, but never drowned.
13:55Cut the head while it is still tight and firm, the very day the buds begin to loosen, and then
14:01do not
14:01pull the plant, but keep it fed, and let it give you weeks of sweet side shoots after. Do those
14:09things,
14:09things, and you will grow broccoli so big and firm and generous you will wonder you ever paid store
14:15prices for a poor, pale head of it. Tell me down in the comments what county you garden in,
14:21and whether broccoli has bolted on you before, or given you a poor, small head. For now I think you
14:28may know exactly why it did. And if you grow a kind of broccoli that does especially well for you
14:34in
14:34your own country, name it down there, for another grower nearby would dearly love to know what heads
14:41up well where you are. Next time out here, I want to show you how to build a proper compost
14:47pile the
14:48old way, layer upon layer, so that you can make the rich black compost and rotted goodness that a hungry,
14:56heavy feeding crop like broccoli must have to grow those great heads. For as I told you, this is one
15:03of the very hungriest plants in the garden, and that pile is how you feed it for nothing. It is
15:09the
15:10foundation under all of it, and it is past time I showed you. But for now, remember this. Broccoli
15:17teaches patience with the seasons, for it will not be rushed nor grown in the wrong weather,
15:23and it asks to be fed generously before it will give generously. That is a fair bargain,
15:30and an honest one, the same one the land has always offered. Give it what it needs in its right
15:36season, and it gives back tenfold. The people who built this country with their hands knew that,
15:43and we are only just starting to remember it.
15:46I want to show you how to build a new garden.
15:46I want to show you how to build a new garden.
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