I planted broccoli plants, not seeds, in a community garden plot during the first week of June. I chose broccoli because the season had been so cold and wet that there weren't many seedlings to choose from at the closest garden center. From what I've read here, that weather was not so bad for broccoli. I had prepared the plot by adding in a large bag of composted material before planting. About three weeks after planting I applied a 20-20-20 fertilizer. Since the 2nd week of June the weather has been a lot hotter and we've had very little rain. The plot is small so we water with watering cans filled at rain barrels. I go down to the garden almost every day and water it. I'm not used to growing vegetable plants but I didn't expect to do so poorly. The broccoli seemed to be fine, no discolouration, no wilting or curled leaves, all bright and green and happy-looking. But it's been just about 6 weeks since planting and the plants never grew more than an inch or so in height beyond what they were at planting and the heads began to develop. Now having not grown it before I had no clue what to expect. The height concerned me within a couple of weeks... and then once the heads developed, they simply didn't grown beyond the size of one small crown you'd find on a regular sized plant. The whole head was the size of one crown. Then within less than a week some burst into flower! I was astounded... and I have no idea what happened. I can tell from here that the warmer weather probably affected the quick flowering but why didn't the plants grow more? why didn't they do better before the warm weather occurred? I would have thought they'd have grown before the heads developed. Is it possible that the seedlings were waiting too long at the garden store? Would that account for the lack of growth before the weather warmed?
I planted broccoli plants, not seeds, in a community garden plot during the first week of June. I chose broccoli because the season had been so cold and wet that there weren't many seedlings to choose from at the closest garden center. From what I've read here, that weather was not so bad for broccoli. I had prepared the plot by adding in a large bag of composted material before planting. About three weeks after planting I applied a 20-20-20 fertilizer. Since the 2nd week of June the weather has been a lot hotter and we've had very little rain. The plot is small so we water with watering cans filled at rain barrels. I go down to the garden almost every day and water it. I'm not used to growing vegetable plants but I didn't expect to do so poorly. The broccoli seemed to be fine, no discolouration, no wilting or curled leaves, all bright and green and happy-looking. But it's been just about 6 weeks since planting and the plants never grew more than an inch or so in height beyond what they were at planting and the heads began to develop. Now having not grown it before I had no clue what to expect. The height concerned me within a couple of weeks... and then once the heads developed, they simply didn't grown beyond the size of one small crown you'd find on a regular sized plant. The whole head was the size of one crown. Then within less than a week some burst into flower! I was astounded... and I have no idea what happened. I can tell from here that the warmer weather probably affected the quick flowering but why didn't the plants grow more? why didn't they do better before the warm weather occurred? I would have thought they'd have grown before the heads developed. Is it possible that the seedlings were waiting too long at the garden store? Would that account for the lack of growth before the weather warmed?