the quest for growing the perfect
broccoli variety continues in today's
episode we look at growing the Gypsy
hybrid broccoli variety so we are sowing
our broccoli seeds in Irvine California
zone 10 and we are sowing our seeds in
November which is the fall season almost
leaning towards winter if you have very
cold winters what I would suggest is
sowing your seeds somewhere around
january or february so that you get
about six weeks till your last frost
date and then what you can do is
transplant your seedlings now one more
question that a lot of viewers have
asked me is whether growing hybrid
vegetable varieties are good or bad or
are they GMOs so let me just put this
question to rest so hybrids and GMOs are
two totally different things you have
heirloom seeds which are seeds that can
be grown over generations you can just
save your seeds and grow them for the
next season and then you have hybrids
like these which are selected to grow
the best plants they are not GMOs they're
just selection, natural selection of
plans to get the best possible plants
that you can grow in your home garden so
by all means go ahead and buy these kind
of seeds you won't be disappointed now
21 days since we sowed these seeds you can
see that the seedlings have emerged and
at this stage they are free to be
transplanted into your raised beds or
your containers and the reason we wait
for the seedlings to grow this big is
because you don't want to cut worms
eating away into your young seedlings as
you can see here this is our raised bed
where we will be translating our
seedlings and I've tried many variations
of how many broccoli plants grow in one
raised bed properly this is a 4 foot by
4 foot raised bed
and I have grown about 12 plants in the
past and then one of our youtube viewers
commented that i was not only growing a
lot of plants i should be growing more
plants and my four feet by four feet
raised bed so that's when I decided that
I should try with 16 plants so four by
four, four plants in a row four plants in
each column and that gives me total of
sixteen plants in this 4 by 4 raised bed
and this has been working very well so
far for growing broccoli cabbage
cauliflower I get enough room for the
plants to grow and also maximize the
growing space that I have
now we have added a lot of organic
matter into this bed broccoli requires
good amounts of nitrogen to be present
in the soil and we have been working in
compost into this raised bed for quite a
while now and remember that your organic
supplements or organic additions to your
garden bed do take some time to break
down so prepare your beds well in advance
I would say the best way to accomplish
this is to keep adding organic matter
every time you plant new seedlings or
new plants into your raised bed that way
you get the best available soil for your
raised bed
now I have never experienced something
called clubroot for my broccoli plants
but if you have experienced clubroot in
the past what you can do is either
compact your soil a little bit just by
pressing on to the soil around the
broccoli plants now at 66 days you can
see that the plants have grown pretty
large and at this stage you can add a
next round of fertilizer to your plants
now you can use either a liquid
fertilizer or water soluble fertilizer
that's meant for vegetables or you can
use compost tea which is a great
fertilizer when used every three weeks
or so and you can see here that about
101 days after sowing the plants have
grown pretty big and these are the first
signs you can see the broccoli buds
emerging and they will grow larger as
time goes by and it's now time for us to
harvest our first broccoli head as you
can see here the heads are very firm
very nice if you are growing broccoli in
the right way this is how your head
should look like they should not be long
and stringy and lose when you harvesting
them it should be nice and firm as you
can see here and broccoli has a lot of
health benefits it's extremely
nutritious and it's known to prevent
some forms of cancers because it
contains substances which are called
isothiocyanates which ward off some forms
of cancers like prostate cancer now
broccoli must be grown in full Sun you
need about six to eight hours of Sun to
grow your broccoli plants and that will
give you the best tasting broccoli that
you've ever grown now the kind of
broccoli that you get - the taste the
size depends a lot on the variety of
broccoli that you are growing so I would
suggest that you try out growing
different broccoli varieties and then
see which one is the best that works out
for you so in this plant profile video
today we are looking at the Gypsy hybrid
broccoli and in one of our previous
videos we had
seen how to grow the Sun King broccoli
the Sun King broccoli is one broccoli
variety that's resistant to heat it does
not bolt in extreme weather and this
variety is actually now one of my
favorite varieties to grow the Gypsy
hybrid it produces really good sized
heads the broccoli is very delicious
when we harvested and prepared this
broccoli the kids loved it a lot the
taste was excellent and we could make a
lot of dishes with this broccoli that we
harvested from our garden so growing
your own food is very rewarding broccoli
again is my number one favorite
vegetable to grow and eat I just love
eating broccoli and I'm sure that there
are a lot of you who are watching this
video that love to eat broccoli as well
so all in all I would suggest this
broccoli variety for you to grow in your
home garden you can easily buy these
seeds at any garden center and the
hardware improvement stores like home
depot or lowes in your area very easy to
get these seeds you can also buy these
seeds on Amazon I'll try to provide a
link in the video description that you
can buy these seeds as far as insects and
diseases go I didn't have any insects
attacking my broccoli plant I try not to
use any insecticides or pesticides at
all and even if I do use them I use
organic methods only like water or soap
or neem oil but in this case I didn't
have to use any kind of insecticides the
broccoli plants were very healthy
throughout the growing season they
produced excellent quality broccoli heads
which were firm and nice and each plant
produced a lot of broccoli so there was
one main head that each plant produced
and once we harvested the main head the
plant also produced some side buds or
side shoots of broccoli that we could
harvest for a very long time and this is
one good benefit of growing broccoli in
your garden you can get to harvest your
broccoli heads for a very long time
so at about 127 days since sowing the
biggest heads are getting produced in
this broccoli plant and we sowed and
harvested this broccoli from two raised
beds if you've been watching my
gardening series my monthly gardening
series videos you would have seen that
we are growing this in two raised beds
and this is the other raised bed that
we're growing or broccoli plants in now
we did have a lot of rain and hail as
you might have seen from our previous
month's video so I did have to support
these broccoli plants by some small
stakes and by supporting them with these
small stakes they stood up very well and
they were able to grow very easily
throughout the growing season at about
139 days after sowing some of the other
broccoli head started showing up the
plants that were the last ones to catch
up and you can see that the heads are
very beautiful we were able to harvest
this throughout january and februari and
also towards the beginning of March so
all in all this was a very long harvest
season and I again recommend this
broccoli variety to every one of you you
should try growing this broccoli variety
I am sure that you will be very happy
with the results and another important
thing to check is your soil pH broccoli
loves pH which is between 6.5 to 6.8 you
can easily test pH using one of the
tools that you will see in the
description the video description I will
provide a link to the pH measuring tool
now once your broccoli grows to what you
are seeing here where it started
producing flowers
you need to remove them now I was
actually late in harvesting these
broccoli heads and they started
flowering and as you can see here
they're still edible this broccoli is
still edible but because the delay in
harvesting it they are now slightly
flowering as you can see here and
broccoli heads broccoli florets flowers
they're all very healthy and very
delicious it's just that you need to
remove them to avoid butterflies laying
their eggs on your broccoli plants which
in turn will have caterpillars eat your
plants up so for the best results just
try to harvest the heads when they are
young and tender like this one so that
you get the best broccoli out of your
garden so there we have it folks that
was our episode on how to grow broccoli
the Gypsy hybrid broccoli variety I hope
you liked this broccoli variety and I
would like to know from you my youtube
viewers what varieties of broccoli do
you like to grow in your garden do leave
in a comment and if you like this video
do give it a thumbs up we'll see you
again soon happy gardening