Tips on Growing Broccoli in your Garden

Easy tips on growing broccoli in your garden this year.

Do you love fresh broccoli? Growing up broccoli was one vegetable I never, ever ate. I wouldn’t even touch it. My mother even knew not to ask if I wanted any. I just never cared for the taste.

Well, that’s not the case anymore! Broccoli is one of my favorite vegetables. We have it a few times a week as a side dish for dinner. And I’m happy to say that my children also enjoy broccoli.

Today I’m sharing with you today a few more photos of our garden along with tips on growing broccoli in your garden. I’m also sharing with you a very easy recipe for broccoli. Broccoli doesn’t need a fancy cheese sauce to make it delicious. We enjoyed our very first home-grown broccoli for dinner last night and it was delicious just steamed with a little butter.

Tips for Growing Broccoli

Planting

Broccoli is not very hard to grow at all. You can either start the seeds indoors or you can plant the seeds directly into the ground in your garden, which is what we did.

Spacing

Make sure you space the seeds/plants at least 18 inches apart. The plant grows very large and you do not want to overcrowd them.

Watering and Fertilizing

Broccoli grows very fast so you will need to fertilize the young plants. Also, make sure you keep the soil moist. Give the broccoli plants at least an inch of water every week. Try to water the plants deeply at the root and not just sprinkle them.

Harvesting Broccoli

This was the first one we harvested just the other day. We heard from quite a few people to soak the broccoli heads in water before bringing them into the house just in case there were worms inside. We did that and I’m happy to report, no worms at all. We didn’t even see worms when we harvested the broccoli, but we weren’t taking any chances, so we soaked the heads in a bucket of water.

Our harvest from the other day. Broccoli, tomatoes, green peppers and sugar snap peas.

Recipe for Steamed Broccoli

The broccoli was easy to prepare. I just steamed it with a little water. It only took a few minutes for the stalks to become tender.

After I drained the broccoli, I melted a tablespoon of butter in the hot pan and added the broccoli back to the pan. A sprinkle of salt and pepper and the broccoli was ready to serve. Make sure you cover the broccoli again so the butter, salt and pepper have time to marry together before serving.

We had grilled chicken and potatoes roasted on the grill to go with our garden fresh broccoli.

Very first broccoli from the garden this year. Amazingly delicious.

A few more photos from our garden

Eggplant – I can’t tell you how amazing eggplant fresh from the garden tastes!

My sunflowers are doing amazing this year.

My other favorite flower to grow in our garden is zinnias. They’re so easy! Just plant the seeds and watch them grow. They make beautiful arrangements.