BROCCOLI
Diverse,Sprouting Varieties
About These Seeds
Sprouting broccoli features tender, flavorful buds and an extended harvest period, making it ideal for fresh eating and versatile cooking.
This seed mix offers a variety of colors, shapes, and tastes, allowing home gardeners to grow resilient, abundant plantsthat adapt to local garden challenges.
Days to Harvest for Eating: - days ( . - months)
Days to Harvest for Seed: - months
Ideal Planting Date (Spring): Indoors - weeks before last frost date.
Outdoor planting date (transplants or direct sown): Last frost date in your area.
Fall Planting Date (Hot climates) . - months before firstfall frost date.
Light: Plant in full sun
Days to germination: -
Planting
PollinationNotes: Broccoli (Brassica oleracea) easily cross-pollinates with other members of its species, including cabbage, cauliflower, and kale. Only allow one Brassica oleracea population to flower at time.
Resist the urge to perfect your soil with store-bought amendments. Broccoli thrives over time when it can adapt to native soil.
Planting:Sow in pots in a greenhouse, bright windowsill, or frost protected area - weeks before the last frost date. Make sure they get plenty of light to avoid getting ‘leggy’(long stems).
HotterClimatesshould try a fall planting: start seeds two and a half to three months before the first frost date in the fall.
Plant - seeds in each pot or cell of a tray, you will select the strongest seedling when transplanting.
Transplanting
After germinating, choose the strongest seedling, and snip the others at soil level. After - weeks, set seedling trays out to hardenfor one week before transplanting. This allows cell walls to harden and adapt to frost.
Transplantin your garden - inches apart in-row and - ” between rows. Water in well. Maintain a weed free bed around plants with stand-up or wheel hoes.
Harvesting to Eat
Broccoli will begin forming crowns during summer or early fall. The crowns are immature flower buds; so harvest promptly (unless you want to eat them as flowers). After cutting the main head, allow resprouts to grow for extended harvests.
Sproutingbroccolihassmallerheadsthantraditionalbroccoli.Once youharvestthemainhead,itwillkeepsendingtastysideshootsinto thefall.
Harvestpromptlyonce youseeitformingahead (left),oryouwillendup withflowersandseeds
Selection for Seed Saving
In this seed mix, expect a wide diversity. Some plants will have larger stems, some will have bigger heads and abundant side shoots.
Cut and eat all of the first heads the plant produces (use a knife or scissors to make a clean cut when harvesting.) Once the stalks produce new shoots, mark your favorite plants with ribbons (to save for seeds). Do you prefer purple, larger, or smaller crowns and buds?
Remember to leave enough branches so that you get seeds for yourself, and enough to share.
Be sure toallowseveralplantstogotoseedbecause they require neighboring plant’s pollen in order to make viable seeds.plants is a good minimum population for gardeners. This will help the group resist inbreeding depression.
Someofthebroccoli plantsmaynot setseed inthefirstyear.Remove thoseplantstogivemore spacetootherplants.
PhotoCredit:AllphotosofbroccoliweretakenbyClintFreund.
Brightflagsmarktheplantsthatwereselectedasthebestforbroccoli. Non-selectedplantscanbecutandeaten.
Choosethehealthiestandoneswiththetraitsyouprefer.
Harvesting and Saving Seeds
Harvest: Allow the seed pods to dry on the plant, until at least half the pods have turned from green to brown. Harvest before rain is expected to prevent mold and before the dry pods split open.
To harvest, cut the plants with a pruner and collect them on a sheet, tarp, or plastic bin.
Additionaltimetomature:Let the bundle continue drying in a well-ventilated, shaded area until the pods crackle and split when you handle them.
Threshing: When fully dry, separate the pods from the seeds by rubbing or stomping on them on a tarp to release the seeds. Seeds can be softer than they appear– use tennis shoes (not boots), and avoid threshing them on cement. Use a plasticbin, or a tarp on grass.
Remove the bulk of the chaff by hand.
Optional: Pour the rest through a colander or ⅛ size screen (if you have seed cleaning screens) .
Threshingmightlooklikethis.Brassicaseedsaresoft: Avoidplacingthetarponconcrete,orusingboots.
Winnow:Use a fan or a breezy day to clean the seeds by pouring out the mixed seeds and any remaining debris from one bin to another located beneath it (have a sheet under the bin in case you lose too many while learning).
The lighter chaff blows away while the heavier seeds fall into a container.
You can use this technique for any crops that have dry seeds.
Store seeds in a cool, dry, dark place. Paper bags allow seed to continue drying. After a month or two, plastic or glass jars offer better humidity control. After that,freezing them for hours will help eliminate any pests. Properly dried and stored, broccoli seeds can remain viable for up to five years.
These seeds were grown by Clint Freund of Cultivating theCommons in Amery Wisconsin.
Clint, an organic farmer with over years of experience, manages about an acre of seed crops for wholesale, retail and research. The Broccoli Grex began by finding close to different varieties of sprouting broccoli from our USDA seed banks to local gardeners to large seed companies. In this first generation, the plants should include exciting variation, from color and flavor to growth habits and disease resistance.
Still in the early stages of this project, Clint will continue to focus on gathering more diversity and finding genetics with adaptability to diseases that affect broccoli in the Midwest. Future years will focus on selecting for traits useful for gardeners and farmers. This will include vigor, regrowth, standability, longevity and disease resistance.
Center of Origin: Mediterranean Roots
Broccoli began its journey in the coastal Mediterranean, where wild cabbage (Brassica oleracea) grew along rocky limestone cliffs. Ancient farmers in what is now Italy began selecting plants with larger, more tender flower buds around BCE.
The Etruscans were the first to cultivate broccoli in the areawe now call Tuscany. They bred it from wild cabbage, along with other vegetables like kale and cauliflower. Roman gardeners continued developing broccoli, selecting for the tight, edible flower heads.
The vegetable remained largely unknown outside Italy until the th century. North Americans didn't embrace broccoli until the s, when Italian immigrants brought their seeds and growing traditions to their new homes.
While modern commercial growers focus on single-headed broccoli varieties, sprouting broccoli is closer to its Mediterranean ancestors. It produces smaller but continual harvests throughout the season, making it ideal for home gardens.
Since those first Tuscan farmers, people have been saving broccoli seeds and adapting them to new locations- whether you're growing on a patio or a farm, you're now part of that ancient tradition.
Locally Adapted, Community Selected
Year by Year Guide
Howdoweadaptacroptoourlocalenvironment?
Year1: Get lots of gardeners to plant lots of seeds. Some plants will do better than others, and that’s OK; celebrate these strong ones. Save seeds from any plants that produce seeds, despite challenges.
Year2: Plant your saved seeds but this time be more selective. Remove the weakest plants and save seeds from the healthier, more productive, insect- and disease-resistant plants in your population.If the plants or their fruits are delicious, enjoy the bonus.
Year3andbeyond:Repeat Year but start selecting plants with the traits that you love, e.g., preferred flavor, size and shape, dark colors or early ripening. Introduce - new varieties or another local gardener’s seeds to keep your population diverse, so it can continue to adapt and evolve (always save seeds from multiple plants).
TheKey: Save your seeds and share some with your local seed library. Your seeds will be mixed with other gardeners’ seeds and shared back with the community, resulting in a diverse, resilient local crop.
Please fill out this sticker or form and return with your seeds
Plant/species name:__________________________________
Variety (or parent varieties) ____________________________
Garden Location:_____________________________________
Year: _______________________________________
Grower name: ____________________________________
Email or phone: ___________________________________
Notes: ___________________________________________
● Make sure seeds are completely dry and clean.
● Bring them to your local seed library in any clean container
● Fill out a quick check-in slip (found near the seed cabinet, or use the tear-off page here.
● Note any special traits or reasons you saved the seeds.
Why Save Seeds?
In this guide, you'll learn how to grow and save seeds that get stronger and more delicious with each generation. Along the way, you'll join an ancient tradition of seed stewards, helping to heal our food system from the ground up.
Localization- Over time, seeds learn your soil, local pests, climate, and your habits, and will thrive with less effort from you.
Strengththroughcommunity- Every gardener adds to our local food security.
Selectforwhatyoulove- Grow food that matches what matters to you—flavor, sustainability, resilience, or all three.
