Broccoli for dinner

Broccoli heads - from one plant

Yummy look at these lovely heads of broccoli, the first I've taken from my garden this year.
Its July.
I'm glad I can buy vegetables otherwise I would have starved this year - I'm normally eating something from the cabbage family all year round.
This broccoli bed is doing well after a very slow start - so its broccoli every day now until they are all gone. Then I'll be swapping stuff with my fellow growers until my next batch mature.

18 plants of broccoli

Here they are - all crammed in together, 18 plants in four rows.
I love that fantastic blue green colour!
Broccoli are very easy to grow once they get going. They do need a bit of careful babying when they are young to protect them from slugs and netting to stop the birds pecking them. Its well worth that little effort. Fresh home grown, steamed broccoli is one of my favourite vegetables.

The west corner of the garden 

They are in the west corner of garden. They are very easy to grow close together and as long as the soil is reasonably fertile they are very happy plants with a fantastic presence.
Mine are not growing in full sun,  I have a few trees around the garden. The sun reaches them after 9am and is gone before 3pm.
They do like a firm soil, so I try to plant them straight after beans. I cut the spent beans off at the base and leave the roots in the soil. I make holes for the broccoli with a bulb planter and mulch them with composted stable manure to suppress weeds and give the soil a bit of a boost - they are hungry plants.