How to Save Money and Grow Healthy Organic Broccoli

Though the market for organics has grown tremendously in recent years, broccoli is among the vegetables most often purchased organic by consumers in North America. Given the way the price of all produce has gone up in the last few years, more and more people have decided to try growing their own organic broccoli. Doing so can save a considerable amount of money if you have the space to do so.

As a brassica, broccoli is a cool-season crop, very closely related to the other cole crops of cabbage, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kohlrabi, collards and several others. As such, it is able to be grown as both a summer and a winter crop in many areas. Developed in Italy, it was brought to United States by immigrants and quickly became a very popular vegetable worldwide.

When planting as a summer crop, it is usually best to start broccoli indoors, though it can also be planted directly. Broccoli seeds, unlike many others, can germinate in relatively cool temperatures as low as 50F (10C). Many growers get a jump on the season by starting transplants several weeks before the last frost date.

Most varieties of broccoli that are available are hybrid varieties that have been bred for size and growth characteristics that allow crop to be uniformly harvested by machines. A good variety will have a rounded head that doesn’t collect water on developing florets and plenty of side shoot production.

In addition, broccoli comes in two general forms, one that forms a single large central floret and a raab type that makes a great many small florets. Whichever you choose, their cultivation is identical. Both are rather heavy feeders, requiring a rather large amount of compost to be added to the soil.

If you haven’t done so already, it’s always a good idea to get your soil tested for pH and nutrients. Broccoli is tolerant of rather acidic soils, though it prefers a soil pH between 6 and 7. If you have a rather high incidence of club root in your soil, raising the pH to above 7.3 can help prevent it from developing.

Aphids are a particularly nasty pest, though they can easily be defeated by spraying with an insecticidal solution made from the Indian neem tree. It will kill existing aphids dead and prevent the spread of disease form other broccoli plants. Other ways to keep insects from destroying your developing broccoli plants is to cover the heads in a protective layer of Remay.

Another trick used by many organic gardeners is to use a long rotation cycle that allows the soil to rest anywhere from three to five years without planting any of the other brassica crops. One may also use a trap row of broccoli that is allowed to go to flower, drawing in pollinator insects and trapping aphids and other stylet insects in that decoy row.

Plan on planting anywhere between 5 and 10 plants for each person in your household. Since the broccoli plants can get up to 3 feet across, this can represent a fairly large amount of real estate, especially in a small garden. However, if you don’t give the plants plenty of room, they won’t form a very large head. It’s better to thin the plants out so they have plenty of room to get big.

Be sure to harvest the heads before they begin to actually flower, while at the same time allowing the heads to get as close to flowering as possible. After harvesting the main head, additional side shoots will continue developing for a few more months, though they’ll never get quite as big as the central flower.

As for nutrition, It’s usually a good idea to side-dress the plants with a side-dressing of organic fertilizer of high quality compost to add organic matter and nutrition to the soil. It is not often necessary to add sulfur to the soil, some soils can be seriously lacking in this critical element, and it should be added in one form or another. Elemental sulfur is also useful in smoking out rodents and other vertebrates that are attracted to broccoli.

Mulch is a handy ally when growing organic broccoli, not only to keep weeds down, but also to keep the roots cool and conserve water. Unlike many summer crops, broccoli isn’t prone to powdery mildew. Though you can get away with watering from above over any patch of brassicas, water applications that get the leaves wet during the day can cause sun-scald, turning the leaves brown.

Broccoli can be rather expensive when purchased at the grocery store, especially if you use it on a regular basis. With careful and staggered plantings, you can have broccoli almost throughout the entire year.

How to Save Money and Grow Healthy Organic Spinach

Whether it’s a tainted-food scare or the high cost of organic produce in the supermarket, many people have decided to take matters into their own hands and grow their own organic spinach. Not only is home-grown spinach tastier and much higher in vitamins than conventionally produced market spinach, but fresh spinach from your own garden can be sown so you have a nearly year-long supply waiting to be picked whenever you want some.

Spinach is a cool season crop that tends to “bolt” or form seed instead of leaves when it gets too hot. There are varieties that are especially resistant to bolting and others that are bred to bear quite early. Most organic gardeners make a point to make several plantings of several different varieties so there is plenty of fresh spinach maturing throughout the season.

Since it’s a green, leafy crop, it is not surprising that it is also a rather heavy feeder. While all the other elements are required, especially calcium, it’s very important to deliver plenty of nitrogen in a useful form. This is an especially important point when growing organic spinach, since the early season crop usually requires more available N than is typically liberated from cold soils.

As such, the soil preparation for successfully planting spinach is a bit more complicated, requiring about twice the amount of compost or manure that you might otherwise apply. Native to the Middle East, spinach must be planted directly due to its long tap root. It doesn’t require a lot of water, but does like to stay evenly moist, especially when young.

It is always a good idea to get a soil test done when growing whole leaf spinach organically. Most agricultural universities offer this service to citizens at minimal cost. Spinach can tolerate a fairly wide range of pH, and is one of the few crops that can handle a mildly alkaline soil. If your soil is acidic, as many are outside dessert areas, adding agricultural lime (calcium carbonate) brings the pH up and adds important calcium.

Generally, spinach is planted in most parts of North America just as soon as the soil is workable, though germination cannot happen until the soil temperature reaches about 45F (7C). Active growth requires a bit more heat, though all varieties will grow to full size in a surprisingly short period of time as soon as temperatures over 60F (16C) are realized.

Surprisingly hearty like many of the brassicas (aka “cole crops”), spinach can tolerate light frosts. In fact, it may be planted in the autumn in all but the coldest parts of North America. During the longest days of summer, anywhere there are more than 14 hours of daylight, spinach will bolt regardless of the heat or variety.

Though most varieties are hybrids and do not breed true to type, you may collect seed from the open-pollinated varieties. If you choose to renew a spinach plant that has bolted, you may chop it down to the ground and let the leaves come back from the bottom.

While spinach tends to be generally free of pests, partly due to its very fast growth cycle, though it is prone to attack from aphids and leaf-miners. Aphids leave tiny dots in the leaves and can spread the few diseases that plague spinach and other crops in the same plant group.

As a general rule, disease in spinach is best controlled by providing proper soil nutrition when planting. Floating row covers of Remay can provide a protection layer that keeps disease-spreading organisms at bay. If that doesn’t work, applications of the organic pesticide made from the neem tree are very effective against soft-bodied insects such as aphids. Leaf miners can be discouraged by keeping the surrounding soil free of weeds that serve as a refuge for the insects.

That said, spinach tends to be a rather trouble-free crop for most people. You should plan on between 15 and 20 plants per person, depending upon whether you plan on putting any up. Spinach stores well when canned or when put in the freezer. Harvest leaves for salads when small, or wait until they’re larger for cooking.

« Previous Page — Next Page »