The Brassica Experiment

What my struggling broccoli and cauliflower are teaching me this spring

The beginning of this garden season feels especially exciting.

Last year I took a complete sabbatical from the garden. By the time early spring arrived, I was eight months pregnant and didn’t have the energy to commit to a full summer of planting, tending, and harvesting. Instead of pushing through, I stepped back and let the garden rest for a season.

Taking a year off has made coming back to it feel even more exciting.

This year I started my first seeds on February 14th: broccoli and cauliflower. It felt good to be back at the seed trays again, but I quickly realized I might be a little rusty after my year away.

I don’t think I pulled the seedlings off the heat mat quickly enough. In my basement setup, the trays sit under dome lids and they’re a bit farther from the grow lights than ideal. Because of that, the seedlings stretched toward the light and became leggy.

Once that happens, you’re already trying to recover from a less-than-perfect start.

I tried to rescue them by up-potting them, hoping they would strengthen up once they had more room. I even added a fan nearby to help toughen up their stems. Still, they never really seemed happy.

Then I decided to try an experiment.

When the seedlings were about two weeks old, I moved a few of them into my cold frame outside without hardening them off first. I wanted to see if they could adapt to the colder environment and possibly grow stronger outdoors.

They did not.

Every single one shriveled up and died.

At that point it felt safe to say the broccoli and cauliflower seedlings had not had a great start this year.

But in the spirit of experimentation, I tried something else. I took the remaining seeds from the packets and simply scattered them into the soil inside the cold frame. No trays. No grow lights. No careful indoor setup.

Just seeds in the soil, outside where they’ll ultimately grow.

And now, a few weeks later, those seeds are starting to come up.

Tiny little brassica seedlings are pushing through the soil, and I’m hopeful that starting them outside might actually produce stronger plants than the ones I struggled to raise indoors.

Broccoli and cauliflower have never been my most successful crops. I’m not sure if it’s a climate issue, a timing issue, or simply something I haven’t quite figured out yet. Every gardener seems to have one or two crops that remain slightly mysterious.

For me, brassicas might be that crop.

But that’s also part of what makes gardening interesting. Every season is a chance to try again, adjust something, and see what happens.

So this year’s broccoli and cauliflower are officially an experiment.

Some failure, some hope, and a few tiny seedlings in the cold frame that just might surprise me.

Ashley