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well hello everyone and welcome to
another very exciting episode here on
the Mi Gardner Channel I'm so glad to
get to bring another complete growing
guide to you every single time I film
one of these complete growing guides I
love seeing the response they are some
of our most popular videos and everyone
loves them and I just I get more excited
to find a new one to do and as I was
looking through the list I was thinking
you know what have I not done yet so I
got a nice thre parter for you so uh
coming up we're going to do one on kale
and we're going to do one on Swiss chard
today as well so you're going to see me
kind of in the same spot because we're
going to plant our kale our Swiss chart
and our broccoli right here so uh stay
tuned for those complete growing guides
but today's growing guide is going to be
on Broccoli this has been a very popular
one I don't I don't know why I haven't
so um I apologize that this has been
such a late coming video but uh we have
our broccoli here we started from seed
and I want to start out by talking about
some of the soil requirements because
the soil requirements for broccoli is
quite a bit different so even though
we're planting other plants in this area
there's something that you can do to
kind of prep your broccoli area that's
going to give you more success than you
would just treating it like any other
plant and that is that broccoli is very
prone to what's called Club root and
it's it's actually a disease that can be
prevented by compacted soil it's so
strange and I'm not totally sure why but
compacting the soil actually has been
scientifically proven to reduce clubroot
and clubroot is basically just um it's a
disease that basically attacks the the
root system of the broccoli and it kind
of just makes it really gnarly and they
can't uptake water and nutrients as well
as they could and so the name kind of
speaks for itself and that's one of the
biggest problems that plagues broccoli
they don't get attacked by pests all
that much and if you can kind of again
fence yourself off from rabbits and deer
they're really only the the big pests
that you have to worry about um but you
know they don't get Cabbage Moth very
much they'll go for your Swiss chard and
they'll go for your your cabbage and
stuff before they go for the broccoli um
so if you can get r a club route you
pretty much are guaranteed to get
broccoli which is kind of nice as a
gardener I like knowing that um cuz man
there's a lot of problems in the garden
so uh what we're going to do is com in
close I'm going to show you kind of how
I pack down the soil to prevent the club
root and um then we're going to talk
about some of the other Basics which are
really simple I mean you're going to
you're going to be impressed how easy it
is all right so I'm going to plant the
broccoli right here in this little strip
I got three plants that's just enough
for this space it's perfect what I want
to do is I want to
remove just about I'd say 2 or 3 Ines of
soil here what you want to do is you
want to prep the root Zone which should
be cuz it's early spring it should be
fairly damp still and you want to plant
in the early spring which we're going to
talk about you know broccoli they really
like the cooler temperatures the warmer
temperatures they're going to bolt and
they're going to produce uh fettes very
soon that's actually what what is a
broccoli head that you eat is the fettes
it's the early flowers of the broccoli
so you want it to actually um go slowly
into seed so it can gain a lot of energy
because the more energy the plant has
the bigger it's going to get so what we
want to do is we made this little trench
right here about 3 in deep still in The
Damp soil and what we want to do is
we're going to just take our foot and
you're going to a lot of gardeners are
going to be scared to do this but you're
going to take your foot and you're just
going to pack that soil down really nice
and hard if you have the right type of
soil here I'm going to demonstrate if
you have the right type of soil believe
it or not I just stomped that
down and look see it's crumbly as always
so the right type of soil makes all the
difference because if you do this with
clay soil you're not going to have a
good uh success rate so what you want to
do first is also we're going to talk
about the soil you want very organic
rich soil organic matter is so crucial
because see I just stomped that down I
weigh about 200 lb and uh you know I'm
I'm working on I'm working on dropping a
few pounds by the way but you know I
weigh about 200 lb and I put my full
body weight on there and it's still as
Loose as ever so one way we do that is
we add a ratio of one part compost to
one part sand and that really helps to
keep it nice and loose as well um and
well draining which is very very crucial
for broccoli so that's the soil type as
far as pH goes um the pH is right around
uh right around neutral s we we don't do
anything we don't add sulfur or lime to
this portion of the garden um if we were
to grow tomatoes here which we grew last
year we'd have sulfur here so um I
checked the ph and it's we're right at
around seven again cuz the compost tends
to be a really good pH so add a lot of
compost you're not going to have to
worry they don't like it too acidic
because again uh they can't up take
nutrients if the if the acidity is too
low so um we're going to restomp this
down cuz I just reworked it with my
hands but we're going to stomp this down
with your
feet and now we're ready to plant so
we're just going to we're going to space
them out about every well I need a
little more space there we're going to
space them out about every thin too I
didn't thin my plants so we're going to
space them out about every I'd say n 10
in or so I don't really measure I
eyeball everything in the garden I do
not make things scientific at all and I
tend to have more fun that way and I
need less tools you know so it still
gets the job done uh so about 10 in
though honestly um if I had to give you
a exact distance
so got another one right there and then
I got to prep just a little bit further
another spot here for for the next next
broccoli and they're going to grow up
really nice and close to each other
but there we go stomp that down but
they're going to be totally fine now in
regards to fertilizing fertilizing is
very important we're going to talk about
fertilizing as soon as I cover these up
here all right so let's talk about
fertilizing when it comes to fertilizing
broccoli it is very easy just remember
that you're growing leaves first and the
fates will come later so a lot of times
people they worry about the the
phosphorus and the potassium levels and
they wonder if all these nutrients have
anything to do with the growth phases
just grow it for leaves so if you are
growing spinach if you're growing and
that's why we're growing kale and swiss
chard here because we've done the same
fertilizing regiment for all of our
plants High nitrogen high high nitrogen
we take Trifecta and we just trifacta
the Daylights out of this and that's
going to give you an even balance of
your phosphorus and potassium as well
because like I always say you can't
ignore the fact that they do need
phosphorus and potassium but just focus
on getting nitrogen in there and the
plants will do the rest the plants
uptake a lot of nitrogen because they
are primarily seen as a leaf crop
Believe It or Not broccoli you're
growing massive massive leaves and then
as the plant begins to enter the the
going to seed phase the bolting phase
that's when it produces the head that
you harvest but it's not like tomatoes
that you actually have to produce fruit
because broccoli is not seen as a fruit
so it's not like Peppers that produces a
fruit it's not like pumpkins that
produce a fruit it's like broccoli that
produces leaves and then just goes to
flour so uh again I will stress simply
make sure you get the nitrogen in the
soil make sure there's good compost good
organic matter and a good nitrogen-rich
fertilizer and you're going to be
totally fine with massive broccoli heads
so there you go that's the fertilizing
aspect now when it comes to sunlight and
temperature as we t as we touched on
early spring is key you do not want High
hot temperatures because of the fact
that that's going to cause your broccoli
to bolt early so I like to PL mine out
as soon as the risk of frost is over it
is almost that time however we won't be
back to this Garden in a while so I just
basically risked it but don't tell
anybody um so uh you know I would
typically wait about another week
because they are very very cold tolerant
they can handle frost no problem problem
however often times what I found in my
experience growing broccoli is that if
the plant gets stressed from a frost it
will actually bolt early as soon as the
weather warms up so even though it's a
cold tolerant vegetable I don't like to
put my broccoli out before the the
thread of frost is over so um we're
taking a gamble here but don't do it
with your garden if you want a
successful uh broccoli because of the
fact that it just it almost always
happens so that's the temperature aspect
now sunlight I'm putting this in a bed
that gets around five to 7 hours of Sun
that's going to be totally fine if you
can offer them more they're not going to
be complaining but you cannot give
broccoli any less than around four hours
of Sun four hours of full sun too that
can't be filtered it's got to be full
and um no you know no less than that so
anywhere between 5 and 7 hours you're
going to be a okay great um but again
that full sun is really important
because you're growing the leaves and
the leaves are what generates the energy
for the plant so the more sunlight you
can get the more energy the plant's
going to have and the bigger your
broccoli is going to be simple so there
you go there is a complete growing guide
on how to grow broccoli from start to
finish hopefully you all enjoyed I
highly recommend growing broccoli it is
a delicious delicious plant to grow
right from the garden and nothing beats
it in a fresh spring salad summer salad
and uh I I always just have to grow a
few plants you know it's not that
expensive in the stores but it's usually
been sprayed with a lot of chemicals and
if you can grow it why not right so I
hope you all enjoyed hopefully you all
learn something new and hopefully you
all are growing bigger going home this
is Luke I'll talk to youall later bye
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