Italian sissy broccoli is the most heat-loving among other types of cabbage. An adult plant can endure frosts to minus five, but baby broccoli and minus two - death.
But still, gardeners are bold, looking for how to grow broccoli even in the harsh conditions of Siberia. They show persistence because this asparagus is much more productive than cauliflower, and also much more nutritious and widely known for its medicinal and dietary properties.
Appearance
Broccoli is called asparagus because of the similar branching of the side shoots. She knows how to form additional heads on them, due to which the productivity increases. The shape of broccoli is similar to cauliflower - in bunches of flower buds on a plump and tender stalk. But the color of broccoli is more fun: it can be green, and purple, and white, and blue. Early varieties have a loose head, and later varieties are dense and larger. After removing the central head, after two to three weeks, the lateral ones appear, smaller and lower, they are eaten along with the shoots.
Chemical composition and benefits
Broccoli is valuable precisely for its chemical composition, which includes vitamins and salts of magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus. It is very often used in diet food. Broccoli effectively helps patients with the meteonin and choline available in its proteins, which prevent cholesterol from accumulating in the body. There are many different sugars in the shoots of this cabbage, and there is more vitamin C in it than in cauliflower.
Broccoli: growing seedlings
This cabbage will have to be cut off on time, otherwise it will overripe. How to grow broccoli so that it ripens gradually all summer, and not all at once? Usually it is not sown at the same time: if the varieties have different ripening periods, then it is possible all at once, and if they are the same, observe the weekly interval. Early hybrids mature in seventy to eighty days; these are
Gnome F1, Brogan F1 ,
Kermit F1 ,
Lucky F1 . The middle varieties -
Fiesta F1 and
Coronado F1 - ripen for ninety days.
Seedlings are sown in two seeds per hole with a depth of about two centimeters. Then, after the formation of two true leaves, only the strong plant is left, and the weak one is removed, cutting at the soil level. In early May in the North-West region, seedlings have already been sown, which means that in July early cabbage will ripen, and in August - late.
Growing broccoli - soil, top dressing
Broccoli requires a neutral, even slightly alkaline soil, rich in humus, approximately pH 7-7.5. Constant top dressing is required, for example with Uniflor-micro solution.
Broccoli is very fond of trace elements, especially boron. True, you can weekly replenish it with an ordinary infusion of ash with boric acid (a third of a teaspoon per ten liters of water). But
nitrogen fertilizers need to be limited, otherwise the leaves will grow, and the heads can not wait. How to grow broccoli, if it’s really poor soil? Weekly cabbage is fed with infusion of mullein or weeds.
Temperature, Humidity and Light
Broccoli requires moderation in everything: does not like excessive moistening of the soil and too moist air. Illumination is a completely different matter, it should always be good. But with heat and with a lack of moisture it is also bad: it becomes fibrous and stiff, the heads form small, crumbling into separate inflorescences.
Harvesting
It is important not to be late and cut the head on time. It was repeatedly noticed that in the evening it was dense, and in the morning it turned around in separate bouquets. How to grow broccoli - they tried everything for ninety days, and as soon as they grew up - all the efforts can go down the drain, because when the cabbage breaks into inflorescences, it begins to bloom almost immediately and ceases to be edible.