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Writer's pictureSofias Country Gardens

Beautiful broccoli



Small broccoli head

Broccoli is one of my favourite vegetables and one that we eat many times a week with the family. I must have a hundred recipes with broccoli stored away, but mostly I love it simply boiled fresh with a knob of butter or in the oven with garlic and fennel.


Tiny broccoli plants

I haven't grown it in the garden before this year, as I always thought it to be a tremendously difficult plant. Turns out it isn't although we had a shaky start. My seedling plants were spindly and weak, and when I planted them out (visible in the picture below right at the back of the bed) I never thought they would survive.


Baby broccolis in the far end of the bed

I covered the planting with a fleece cloth, and watered and waited and fussed over the plants for a month. Then suddenly they went "woosh" and grew into fantastic sturdy plants!


The florets ranged in size from tiny sweet ones like above, to proper shop sized bouquets like the one I hold in my hand in the picture below.


Perfect broccoli for the picking!

Then, as soon as they were ready to eat, I had to go away for a week. Before I left we harvested as much as we could, but still there was a a sea of florets that had gone into flower when I returned.


Bumblebees and broccoli

The bees loved them!


Broccoli flowers

What joy to watch!


Bumblebee and broccoli

At about the same time, an invasion of cabbage white butterfly larvae turned up like uninvited guests to my party. I thought this was the end...


Sea of broccoli plants

Nature however had other plans. Within days a flock of tiny birds swept in and in no time the caterpillar community was destroyed!


Afterwards new broccoli shoots kept coming, and I could harvest sprouting broccoli until the end of September. This is the one vegetable I will definitely grow next year again!


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