Fall Planting Guide to Growing Cabbage, Broccoli & Cauliflower

Did you know that planting broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage in the fall is easier than it is in the springtime? Those cool fall months make it even sweeter as well. I'm going to share with you some important growing tips and some essential things to help you have a successful harvest. Pick a sunny spot for these crops. As we move further into fall, our days get shorter. And so what might have been a sunny spot might become more shady as we get further into the fall time. These crops need a minimum of six to eight hours of direct sun a day. Brassicas or the cabbage family need fertile soil with plenty of organic matter and a good source of nitrogen fertilizer. The nice thing about fall planted crops is you only need to fertilize them at planting time. That's enough to hold them over until you harvest. They also like loose soil so that their roots can penetrate deeply. So I always test my soil with a digging fork. If I can push it in really easy, then I don't need to work it. But if it's hard to go into that soil, then I like to turn it up just a little bit. So I'll add about one to two inches of compost and mix some fertilizer in at that time as well. When planting these crops in September, it's a good idea to use transplants rather than direct seed sowing because this gives you at least a three to four week jumpstart. And they're going to do a lot better this way. Look for young transplants. You never want to buy a root bound brassica crop because if you do, then more than likely they're going to be stunted and they're not going to produce a good head on them. And this is especially true with cauliflower. Brassicas should be planted deeper than what they are in their pots. You want to plant them past their cotyledon leaves and go all the way up to the first set of true leaves. That's these bigger leaves up here. And so that's about one to two inches up their stem. And when you put them in the ground, you want to firm them into the ground. What this is going to do is keep them from rocking when we have those fall winds because these little stems are really tender and they'll easily break. Don't let your plants dry out. Keep the soil evenly moist all the way from the surface below the root level. When brassicas dry out, especially that finicky cauliflower, then they go through stress and it's really hard to rehydrate them. And a lot of times that damages the crown of the developing head. So we don't want to do that. We want to keep them moist all the way through the growing season up until harvest. You can really maximize your growing space by interplanting and this is one of the things that I really love to do. In between my broccoli, I'll plant some lettuces, green onions or even radishes. And by the time that those get harvested, then the other crops will start to take over. One of the great things is, is it helps keep the moisture in. And if you're watering, why not have a couple of crops? It also helps keep the weeds down. This is a great thing to do when you have small space and you want more food. Cold tolerance and hardiness are really relative terms rather than precise definitions. It's really about the plant's acclimation, especially during the fall time. A sudden cold snap that occurs in the early fall or before a crop has been exposed to too much cold might severely damage it. The same temperatures in the late fall after much more gradual exposure to the cold will cause much less damage. So it's important to get a jump start about a month to six weeks on planting these crops before your first frost. Broccoli varieties can be ready in as little as 45 days, while cauliflower and cabbages can take up to 70 days to reach full maturity. So if you have an early freeze, it's a good idea to have some frost blanket ready. Just using a simple hoop made of wire with some frost cloth secured over the top, allowing some air space over the top of the plant is all you're going to need. Hard freezes can damage your developing heads or crowns of your brassica crops, so watch your forecast. Just a couple of days of covering or even a week may get you to your harvest. Broccoli and cabbages are hardy down to about 25 degrees, and that persnickety cauliflower, it's hardy down to about 30. The great thing about growing these crops in the fall, as those temperatures drop, so does the pest pressure, but the flavor increases.