Some brassica advice?

[ritaxis]

I live in Sunset zone 17 (USDA zone, um, 9b). Basically brussels sprouts and broccoli country. And yet I have never successfully grown a head of broccoli or cauliflower in my yard. My broccoli and cauliflower grow small, bolt early, and never head properly. Their leaves taste good, though. I do grow kale but it's smallish. My kohlrabi and turnips

Comments

[_evalution]

Brassicas typically like a neutral to slightly acidic soil. The pH of your soil might be part of the problem. Have you fertilized at all? Number one, I'd suggest adding some good organic matter to the beds you want up grow your brassicas in. Some nice rich compost would be really helpful. If your pH is too alkaline you can add sulfur or cottonseed meal to make it more acidic. Brassicas tend to be fairly heavy feeders, so in addition to the compost I'd look for a good organic(my preference) fertilizer with a high first number. I'm guessing that if if whAt you do plant is small and bolts early it's due to a lack of nitrogen.

[ritaxis]

Thank you! as it happens I have a line on some free horse manure. I have been making my soil from compost for years already. I have some sukphur I got for the lemons, I'll use that. Thanks again!

Comment, Part 1

[virginiadear]

Brassicas, which are a large (even a "very large") group of garden plants, are pretty much cool weather plants, and as the USDA hardiness zones are a means of knowing how cold a temperature your plants/perennials must be able to survive ("annual average minimum temperature," is the way it's expressed), this doesn't really tell you a lot about what the rest of the year is like for your plants.

Brassicas are generally cool weather-lovers. In warm climates, broccoli and cauliflower do best when they're planted in the fall, as the spring and summer weather is too hot for them. That heat can be responsible for them bolting early, and it can affect the heading (or rather, not heading or not heading well), too.
Kale likes it cool, too, so you might do better planting it in the fall, also. Brussels sprouts here in the northern part of the U.S. get harvested (from home gardens) in the late spring or the ver-r-ry early summer, but I can't recall having seen end-of-June Brussels sprouts in home gardens that late in the season

Comment, Part 2

[virginiadear]

Make sure, too, that whatever you're planting will have enough growing season to mature, and remember that what to us humans is a minor difference, e.g., the growing season was/is three degrees Fahrenheit warmer, on average, than last year's (or whenever your most successful growing season was), can be a HUGE difference to a plant, sometimes literally the difference between life and death. Humans are a tremendously adaptable species: plants are far more sensitive to temperature and rainfall, but most particularly to temperature assuming irrigation or other watering is being employed to give them the water they need

Re: Comment, Part 2

[ritaxis]

1.As I said previously, I do not live in a warm climate.
2. Neither do I live in a cold climate with a short growing season.
edit: I live in a mild climate.
3. I also stipulated that the light in my garden is moderated and not harsh.
4. In fact, my part of California is a major center for brassicas (and lettuce, and artichokes...) I can't go north or south out of town without passing vast fields of brussels sprouts.

So I'm inclined to give more credence to the pH and nitrogen theory, honestly.