You must be in a warmer area than me...no January broccoli here.

I plant about 3 varieties twice a year. One nice thing about new plantings is the fresh and more vigorous and more tender growth of new plants...same for tomatoes.

Yes, where are you located that you can grow it until January in zone 6a?

Many reasons for me to plant Broccoli in both spring and fall. 1) Spring planted broccoli will bolt in the heat of summer here. 2) Cabbage worms are a problem the further into summer it gets and battling them with BTK gets old. 3) I want the garden space for planting something else in June like Beans or Sweet Corn. 4) Side shoots of the Broccoli types I grow start to diminish to next to nothing in the heat and the quality declines. I don't grow sprouting Broccoli types so I don't know how those produce in the heat. 5) I want to harvest main heads in the fall as well as side shoots until a killing freeze

Agree with others that your climate must be quite unusual compared to most of us, And the production from only 1 plant is sufficient for you? I never advocate planting only 1 of anything. Pest, disease, or weather gets it and you are left with nothing. Plus as Wayne mentioned, the quality declines as the plant ages.

We routinely stagger plant 20-25 plants over 2-3 week intervals for our family of 2. That gives us plenty to eat and some to freeze for winter.

Dave

you cant expect your same plants to get a late spring and then a fall crop. I plant 3 types. Early Dividend(good luck finding that type/.its becoming harder and harder to find), Waltham 29, and Packman. I get a decent harvest of the ED in late June and early july followed by the Waltham 29 in mid july and the packman is read late July early august

fbx22 - You must be up north? I like Early Dividend also mostly because it is so early (45 days) as well as good quality and cold hardy. Cornucopia still offers it but I don't think they have a website. I googled it and found a few seed vendors that still offer it as well as on Amazon. I am lucky that a local seed store here in KC carries it every year and I always buy at least one packet to make sure I always have enough to last me a few years.

I am also planting Packman (55 days), Bay Meadows (60 days), and Arcadia (63 days) this year over a 2-3 week period from late March to mid April with row cover if needed. Early Dividend main heads should be ready to harvest around May 20-30 for me.

I'm in Winthrop MA, right on the coast, so maybe that alters things. I do use more than one plant, I just don't succession plant them. They all go in the ground in April and produce until January.

I'll try succession planting them this year and see if the yield is noticeably bigger.

Last year I tried Solstice broccoli from Fedco. I had very early heads In early

June. With a few plants, I harvested side shoots for most of the summer and into the fall. The side shoots do get pretty small. I'm in west central New York.

I also found that planting about 4 broccoli plants is enough for the whole season. After they give the main head and side shoots, I trim the stem and there will be new stems growing. At the end of summer and into autumn they produce the second crop. I tried the succession planting of broccoli and I did not like it. It is more convenient for me to have several smaller harvests over the longer period, than one big at once.

You folks might like to try the sprouting broccoli types. These just give small sprouts over an extended period. I like the heading types myself. Both green and purple sprouting broccoli is available from Baker Creek among others

According to Cornell University, broccoli can overwinter in zones 7 and warmer. I am not surprised that you were able to keep your plants going through January because my lettuce was still growing until a week or so into January (I am in southwest Ohio zone 6a). We did have a milder winter than usual and then we got some snow and really cold temperatures, my lettuce did eventually die. So was this year the first time you have grown broccoli in winter or is this a regular thing? Could it have been a fluke due to milder temps this year? Either way, I think it is great. Take care.

http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene91d8.html

Im in zone 4 and my leaf lettuce often grows back when spring thaw comes around :/ Likewise been a mild fall and also winter so far here in the midwest this year. I actually had Sage alive and not go into dormancy until after thanksgiving and that was eventually due to being covered in snow rather than being too cold It froze and frosted a few times but not enough to force it into dormancy. First time Ive ever been able to use fresh sage(from my own garden) for Thanksgiving