Broccoli grows best in Maine as a fall plant. The florets will be more tender and tasty if they come to size during the cool temperature of fall than in the warmth of earlier summer – which is when you harvest them if you plant them in late April or early May. Also, in warm weather the plants tend to produce flowers before the heads get a decent size. Don’t worry, broccoli is tough – it can withstand a hard frost in the fall.

Theoretically, you can direct-plant broccoli seeds in the gardens now, but I would forget where I’d put them and step on them as I harvest and tend other plants. So for me, anyway, I’m better off buying seedlings. I called Broadway Gardens in South Portland, and was told that they still have broccoli seedlings for fall planting. I’m sure that you could find seedlings at nurseries and farmers markets, too. You could also start your own in pots, and it is sunny and warm enough that you wouldn’t need artificial light and heat to do so. The seeds should be planted a quarter to a half inch deep and kept moist.

Broccoli likes fertile, well-drained soil that is low in acidity, with a pH around 6.8, so you probably will want to add a bit of lime to the usually acidic Maine soil. The plants get large, so keep them about 18 inches apart.

Broccoli will produce slightly smaller florets after you cut the first crop. You can continue to harvest until the plants get covered with snow. And you might be able to harvest after snowfall if the snow isn’t too deep. (But this is not anything I am ready to think about in July.)

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