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DownriverGardener
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Posts: 121
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:41 pm
Location: Zone 5B

Only Four out of Eight broccoli have heads ...

I have 8 broccoli plants (first year growing it). Four of the plants have beautiful broccoli heads on them (I cannot wait to eat them!). What's strange to me though, is that four of my other plants have absolutely nothing in the middle of them except for some folded up foliage. I am just curious what might cause four of my plants to make gorgeous heads, but the other four are just sitting there.

thanks for any tips

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rainbowgardener
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Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

Has it been hot where you are? Broccoli is a cool weather crop. If it hasn't made heads by the time the weather is consistently in the 80's, it may not, or it may start to make a little head and then the buds just open up instead of the head getting bigger.

You can plant broccoli seed again now for fall crop which will likely do better. I don't know why some should be doing better than others though. Any differences in their location (sun exposure, watering, soil, etc)?

Other possibilities for not forming heads include too much Nitrogen fertilizer, leading to lots of leaves, but not flowering. Overcrowding, not enough water, getting root bound in the pot before transplanting.

Could something be eating them?

In the meantime, all those nice big leaves are edible too. Broccoli is closely related to cabbage and we eat the cabbage leaves. Broccoli leaves are very similar.



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