Starting Brassicas from Seed
Gardeners, it's time to start those brassicas from seed.
Here at my farm, I always start the year off planting seeds indoors for the next growing season. Earlier this week, my head gardener Ryan McCallister started seed trays of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage - all considered brassicas, or cole crops - a genus of plants in the mustard family whose members are informally referred to as cruciferous vegetables. The seedlings will be nurtured in the greenhouse until they’re mature enough to be moved to my vegetable garden.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- I grew lots of broccoli every year – perfect heads of delicious and nutritious broccoli.
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- Fully mature, some heads are bigger than Ryan’s hand. And all are so flavorful.
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- Here is a perfect head of cauliflower. The word “cauliflower” is Latin, meaning “flowers of cabbage” and the low-growing plant looks very similar to cabbage until the large leaves open up and reveal the “curd,” the most commonly consumed part of the vegetable.
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- Most are familiar with the white varieties, but cauliflower also grows in yellow-orange, purple, and even green.
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- And here is one of my heads of cabbage – I grow Savoy cabbage, green cabbage, red cabbage, Napa cabbage, etc.
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- Here is one of my brassica beds in summer. I grow lots of brassicas and save them all for me and my family.
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- And all the beautiful vegetables start out here, in my head house, seeded in trays.
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- Ryan prepares the trays. It’s best to use a pre-made seed starting mix that contains the proper amounts of vermiculite, perlite and peat moss. Seed starting mixes are available at garden supply stores. I use Miracle-Gro Seed Starting Potting Mix.
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- Ryan spreads the soil mix across the seed trays completely and evenly, filling all the cells of each tray. When possible, prepare several trays in an assembly-line fashion, and then drop all the seeds. Doing this saves time and simplifies the process.
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- This time of year my head house tables are often filled with seeds ready to be planted in trays. Johnny’s Selected Seeds is a privately held, employee-owned organic seed producer. Johnny’s offers hundreds of varieties of organic vegetable, herb, flower, fruit and farm seeds that are known to be strong, dependable growers.
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- Seeds are planted at different times depending on their maturity durations. These are the small seeds of broccoli.
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- Ryan drops one to three seeds in each cell. Any weak seedlings will be thinned out later. When buying or ordering seeds, be sure to read the hardiness of the plant. And know your hardiness zone, so you can select the right seeds for your area. Here in Bedford, we are zone-6b. It is easy to look it up online.
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- Ryan places markers in the tray to identify the varieties.
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- Look closely to see the seeds. Seeds will germinate in seven to 10 days in optimal temperature and lighting environments, which is 50 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit under bright light.
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- The Johnny’s Selected Seeds Catalog provides tables that indicate which varieties should be planted when as well as notes on growing and how resistant the plants are to certain pests or diseases.
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- Ryan also starts a couple rows of romanesco, another brassica. Romanesco goes by various names including Romanesco broccoli, fractal broccoli, or Roman cauliflower. It is considered a hybrid between cauliflower and broccoli and grows in a chartreuse color with spire-like florets.
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- Once trays are seeded, the cells are covered up with another layer of soil mix.
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- And that’s it. Ryan fills several trays a day inside the head house.
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- The trays are then properly watered with a misting attachment nozzle that doesn’t hurt or move the delicate seeds. These are also available at Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
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- And then the trays are placed in our Urban Cultivator growing system – it has water, temperature and humidity all set-up in a refrigerator like unit. Let the growing season begin – I’m ready!
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