Growing Broccoli: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Broccoli is a cool-season crop wearing a warm-season crop’s growing calendar in a lot of gardens. Start it too late in spring and heat pushes it to bolt into loose, bitter flower heads before it ever forms a proper crown.
Starting it early, and giving it a full square foot
Start seed indoors about 6 weeks before your last frost and transplant out roughly 2 weeks before that date. Broccoli tolerates a light frost far better than heat. Give each plant its own square foot; unlike denser greens, broccoli needs the room to bulk up into a full head. The main head comes first, and on most varieties, cutting it promptly encourages smaller side shoots to keep producing for weeks afterward. A summer-maturing head almost always bolts before it’s worth eating, which is why broccoli is usually grown as either an early-spring crop, started indoors in late winter, or a fall crop, started indoors in mid-summer for a harvest after the worst heat breaks.
Buttoning is a stress response from weeks earlier
A head that “buttons” (staying small and forming early instead of growing into a full crown) is almost always a stress response, usually from transplanting too late once temperatures are already climbing, or from a cold snap right after transplant. Loose, yellow-flowering heads mean the plant has already started to bolt; harvest what you can and move on, since the flavor only gets more bitter from there. General brassica pest pressure (flea beetles and cabbage worms) doesn’t care what’s planted nearby; a lightweight row cover over young transplants is the more reliable defense, physically keeping both off without needing to spray anything.
Dedicated space, not a gap-filler
Onion’s scent is reputed to confuse the cabbage moths that target broccoli and other brassicas. See the full companion guide for broccoli. Keep it away from tomatoes, since brassicas and tomatoes compete heavily and can stunt each other in a shared bed. At one plant per square foot, broccoli needs dedicated space in the Garden Designer. It’s not a crop you can tuck into gaps the way basil or lettuce can.
Companion planting guide for Broccoli · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-10. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. Broccoli needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Broccoli plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1.5-2 ft.
Soil & water: pH 6.2-6.5. well-drained. Amend with lime if soil pH falls below 6.2.
Varieties worth considering
- Packman: Utah State University Extension credits it with excellent production and eating quality for home gardens, the fastest of the school's three named picks at 50 days. (source)
- Green Comet: Also credited with excellent production and eating quality by Utah State, at 55 days, a middle option between Packman's speed and Premium Crop's size. (source)
- Premium Crop: The slowest of Utah State's three picks at 65 days. Staggering all three in the same planting spreads the harvest window instead of one big flush all at once. (source)
- 'Waltham 29' (best for: fall crops, side shoots): High Mowing lists 5-6 inch heads at 80-85 days, bred specifically to withstand increasing cold for fall maturity and rated the best variety here for bunched side shoots after the main head is cut. Slower and hardier than any of Utah State's three picks above, the one to grow for a late fall harvest. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy broccoli seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing broccoli" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Broccoli: A cool-season crop that bolts fast in heat. Timing matters more here than almost any other vegetable.
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