Vegetable · Brassicaceae
When to plant broccoli
Heads form properly only in cool weather, which makes timing the whole game.
Start seed indoors
7 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Plant out
2 weeks before
Counted from your last spring frost.
Days to maturity
60-90
From planting out to a first picking.
Those weeks become real dates once you name a place.
Timing, in frost-relative terms
Seed packets rarely give calendar dates, because a date that suits one latitude is wrong at another. They give offsets from the last spring frost instead, and those offsets are what make broccoli plantable anywhere.
- Start seed indoors 7 weeks before the last frost.
- Plant out 2 weeks before the last frost.
- Expect 60–90 days to maturity, counted from planting out.
- Can also be sown in late summer for an autumn crop.
Getting the timing right
Aim to have heads maturing before summer heat or after it. A midsummer maturity date produces small, loose, bitter heads no matter how well you grow the plant.
Frost tolerance
Transplants take -6C. Purple sprouting types are far hardier and are grown deliberately through winter for a spring crop.
Classified as half-hardy, with damage expected below -6°C (21.2°F)21.2°F (-6°C).