Carol,

I cut my first head of broccoli today too. Had the kids picking peas and there was a head ready for cutting. We have a road trip planned tomorrow and both the broccoli and peas will be road trip snacks along with a couple cantaloupes (from WalMart unfortunately). Both peas and broccoli were very tasty - I had to sneak a nibble or two. I'm hoping the heat will hold off long enough to get a few more heads.

Me too, picked 50 heads this morn, weighed 30#. So they did better than I thought they would. Daughter and granddaughters are in my kitchen right now blanching, chilling and packing into qt bags. When they're done with that they have 8# of sugar snaps and 5# of broccoli. (See, Dawn, I'm weighing stuff.) And I still have 35 heads of broccoli left for me to put up later this week. And the Sugar Snaps are still loaded with peas. This is the last picking of asparagus though. It's time to let it grow up. Also picked the last of the spinach and some lambsquarters to mix with it for them to take home with them.

The girls and I also picked enough pie cherries for a large cherry crisp so I am glad now that DH ignored my advice to cut down the stump of our ice damaged cherry tree and it's two small branches. There will be at least three or four more pies from that tree. The bluejays and blackbirds haven't found the cherries this year because they are all down low and new very leafy twigs grew up over the fruitbearing branches and hid the cherries from above. YAY!!

Well, apparently I'm going to need a tutorial since my broccoli has not produced a single head so far. This has been soooooo frustrating.

I wintersowed the seeds in January, they sprouted in February and were planted in a cold frame by late February. The glass doors of the cold frame were removed when the weather warmed and were replaced with a screened frame to keep the darn cabbage moths/worms away (which is what ate up my crop last year).

The broccoli are beautiful plants probably 12"-15" tall (or maybe more) but have not even started anything that looks like a broccoli crown. With all the heat I'm sure they'll start bolting any minute now. Yep, very frustrating.

I guess it all evens out though since the tomatoes, cukes, potatoes and onions are doing exceptionally well. I guess I'll try to keep focused on that happy little thought.

Lynn

Carol, Hooray for the fantastic flavor of fresh! Congrats on the broccoli harvest. I hope y'all are able to harvest a lot more before the weather gets too hot. DeCicco sideshoots really well which helps make up for the small heads, although if you get too hot too soon that might not happen.

Randy, I hope the heat holds off too. I just finished my broccoli harvest here in southern OK this morning because the weather was leaving me no choice. It is 96 degrees at the present time and hot, hot, hot.

Dorothy, You got a really nice harvest considering how awful the weather has been. I'm still weighing and recording my harvest too so far, except for the cherry tomatoes, peas and plums I eat on the spot as soon as I pick them.

Since it is so hot here, the cabbage, peas, and broccoli are done, whether I like it or not. It is unbearably hot for late May.

It's great that the cherry tree came through with some fruit. Do you suppose the cherry will send off enough new growth to completely regrow from that stump? It sure sounds like it is trying.

This heat is ripening the fruit very fast. This morning I checked the plums and all we had were green ones (because I picked and ate the few ripe ones yesterday) and a few with some ripening on the blossom end. By noon, we had a half-dozen that have beautiful ripe-looking color although I'll probably not pick them until tomorrow. Who'd think they could develop that much color in about 5 or 6 hours?

Lynn, Broccoli is so hard to get a crop from. If it gets too cold too early, it either doesn't head up or it gives you button heads, which are about the size of a quarter. If it stalls for any reason (too much rain, too little rain, too cold, too hot, too windy, etc.), it loses valuable time and doesn't set heads until the heat has arrived and then the heads bloom prematurely. I don't know what to tell you. I'd certainly hang in there and give it a chance to form heads. One variety we grew, Major, had no heads at all on Monday or Tuesday, and I harvested 5" to 6" heads from some of those plants around 6 a.m. today, although others look completely unchanged and may not form heads.

Broccoli is just a diva and can be very frustrating to grow in our climate because we go from too cold to too hot just too quickly many years. You can do everything right, but since you cannot control the weather, you still may not get a harvest. That may be what is happening to yours. Perhaps the coming cold front, which will cool down most of the state at least somewhat, will give your broccoli the right temps and it will quickly form flowerheads.

I think this is the hottest Memorial Day weekend I can remember having since we moved here. The dogs and cats are inside the house sleeping in air conditioned comfort and I think the chickens would have followed them right into the house if I would have let them.

We went to the grocery store and all we wanted to buy was ice cream (we did buy other stuff, but we spent way too long on the ice cream aisle). It is too hot to think about cooking something. If it is this hot in May, what in the world will June, July and August be like?

Dawn

I picked all we could eat last night, but after checking it today I decided to cut some more of it. The heads are not very large, and they are still very tight, but on some I could see a little touch of yellow, so I cut all of those and had more than I could carry inside in my largest Tupperware bread mixing bowl. I packaged them in quart bags with enough for 2 people each and had seven bags. I will just keep checking it everyday and picking what I can. It's 90 here today.

Lynn - you & I must be growing the same broccoli patch! LOL! Mine have done the very same thing. I started my 50 plants inside, transplanted once into cups then they went straight into the garden after some hardening off. They were in the ground when everyone was here for the Fling. It took forever for them to grow any. Mine too are about the same hieght as yours now...although about 10 of them shot up a skinny soarse stalk of random blooms. Some have been nibbled by grasshoppers, but for the most part are healthy plants...just no head forming. I haven't grown broc in a long time, but the last time was in the city in a tiny raised bed that only got sun until around noon. I had scads of broc in my freezer that fed my little family of 3 for over a year.

Well that was confusing wasn't it? If I had 30# of broccoli, what did I have 5# of? Asparagus, that's what.

But we only cut 44 heads of broccoli, which makes the weight even more impressive. 2/3 of a pound each is ok.

Lynn, I wonder if the variety of broc was to blame. This year all mine was Packman. Not my first choice, but at least it made decent heads. Last year I raised Packman and Calabrese, started them at the same time, transplanted them at the same time, watered them and fertilized them alike and finally in midJune pulled the Calabrese up. I got heads on only a few of them. The package called it an early variety. Not early enough. For years I raised Early Emerald from Park's seed. Had such success that didn't ever try another variety. Then it was discontinued and Early Dividend offered in it's place. Raised that for a couple years. It was very similar to Early Emerald with slightly smaller heads. Last year they didn't get me the seed in time for spring so bought Packman and the Calabrese to try off the rack at WM. (I plantd the Early Dividend last fall but it didn't get nearly enough sun. Remember October in eastern Ok? A grand total of 5 sunny days.) Anyway, I learned that variety can make a lot of difference.

Timng is also CRITICAL. I usually transplant mine in early to mid April, pouring a qt of compost water around them to give them a headstart. This year I planted all of mine late, immediately after the 10 inches of snow, that fell on the first day of spring, melted. I planted 7 plants, which I had held of the original planting, at my Dad's house 2 weeks later and even though he has compost enriched ground, they are so far behind mine that I don't think they'll make much.

Variety, timing, fertilizing, watering are the variables that we can control--and then as Dawn says we are at the mercy of the weather. So better luck next time.

Dawn, I don't know what time has in store for my almost 30 yr old cherry tree. I planted a sweet cherry next to it last year because there is another sweet cherry across the aisle from it. There is of course, a huge open wound of raw wood where the bulk of the tree came down and I am concerned that disease will take it out in a few years. But for now it is there and just loaded with cherries--enough that I will put a few qts in the freezer again.

But tomorrow I will pick more broccoli and cabbage, and get it put up. All that we picked today was for daughter's family. What a busy time of year this is...and we need a rain, so I'm dragging hoses too.

I don't know why I try to remember and type things on a day when I get up as early and stay as busy as I did today. Looked back at my notes. I potted up and began to harden off my broccoli a couple days after the 10" of snow on Mar 20-21. Then on April 11 I transplanted them all to the garden. There, now that is correct. And right on time this year. And right on time for harvest too. For years DD and I have dedicated Memorial Day weekend to putting up broccoli and peas.

Paula, sorry to hear we're in the same boat with our broccoli. I truly thought mine would do better this year with the protection of the cold frame (vs. being a buffett for the darn cabbage worms).

I went back to check on the specific variety I planted. It was called Blue Wind (ordered through Johnny's) and was listed as 'a much improved packman type', supposedly a little earlier than packman although the DTM was listed as 49 days. They've had more than enough time to mature. The cold frame they grew in sits on a raised bed and had new mushroom compost added. Perhaps the freak snows slowed the growth but it never got extremely cold inside the frame. DH & I found a nifty remote temperature gauge made by The Weather Channel folks that allows us to monitor the temps inside the closed frame inside the house. In fact, the system can expand to several sensors monitoring multiple areas (!) if you had that particular need. Anyway, we put a traditional outdoor thermometer inside the box as well for comparison and the electronic version always matched the traditional one so I have no doubt it was acurate. The cold frame, even when covered with several inches of snow, held around 50-55 degrees which I thought was incredible considering how cold the actual outside temps were at that time. I didn't over fertilize since they plants were growing in enriched soil. Maybe I should have given them more fertilizer than I did. I didn't have to water often since the frame held plenty of condensation on the glass doors. Maybe not enough moisture. Does broccoli require tons of water? I just looked at the DTM for Early Dividend which lists 45 days so these varieties are very close on their maturity dates.

I'm leaving them in the ground until I either get heads (I might get lucky at the last minute) or they begin to bolt. I'd like to try again in the fall. Does anyone here have any luck for a fall broccoli crop? If so, when do you plant? Start seeds indoors or do you direct sow? I've never tried a fall garden before but will this year on as many different veggies as I can.

If all else fails, I'm going with Dawn's theory....Broccoli are just DIVAS!!!

Lynn

Broccoli does require a lot of water. And just because there was condensation on the glass doesn't mean there was enough water at root depth. So perhaps not enouth water. Otherwise I don't know. They've definitly had enough TIME, and it doesn't sound like it got too cold.

Lynn, I agree with Dorothy a lack of water could have stunted them. I simply don't understand why they haven't formed some sort of head...even if it was only a tiny buttonhead or a head that flowered as soon as it formed and before it could get big. Do you have acidic soil? I ask because broccoli does not like acidic soil. If your soil pH is 6.0 or lower, broccoli would still grow, albeit slowly, but might not form heads. Other than that, I can only guess that the specific variety you planted just does not like our spring weather. I have found most broccoli varieties do not perform well in Oklahoma no matter how well they perform elsewhere. I have tried many, and none of they have performed as well as Packman for me. So, you'd think I'd learn my lesson and plant only Packman.

For fall broccoli, count back 12 weeks from the date of your average first killing frost/freeze of autumn and start seeds then. I start transplants inside and move them outside as soon as they sprout. I put them in the ground when they have 3 to 5 leaves. Fall-planted broccoli rarely has problems with cabbage loopers or imported cabbage worms but may struggle a little with the heat when transplanted in July.

I'll find and link the OSU Fall Planting Guide because it has planting dates and lots of other useful info.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Fall Garden Planting Guide

I picked another 18# of broccoli today. That brings this year's total to over 50 pounds, counting the two heads we ate fresh before I started freezing. And there are still 3 smallish heads in the garden.

I didn't know broccoli was supposed to be difficult in Ok when I started growing it over 20 years ago. I did learn the first year that buying started plants at the same time as cabbage didn't work. Read somewhere to plant them later and also started my own plants from seed. And knew that I wanted the shortest dtm I could find. Since then the only failures I've had were when a late hard freeze took them out and the time I planted the Calabrese.

Dawn is right though, broccoli likes almost neutral soil. Some years I topdress (carefully and not too close to the stem) with woodashes. This year I didn't though, just compost.

All in all, not a bad broccoli year for me.