This year I planted 8 Marathon broccoli starts in February and we finally enjoyed eating our broccoli over the past two weeks. The broccoli was fantastic! So much more tender than any broccoli I’ve tasted from a farmers market or store.
So today, I pulled out the plants as they are done for the year. Pulling them out was no easy task, as they come out with a large dirt ball of roots. You have to shake all of the dirt off to return the dirt to the bed. I was happy and surprised to see that all 8 plants had a minimum of 3 worms hanging out in the hole where the plant once was!
As you know, worms are important in your vegetable beds because 1) they leave castings in the soil which contain lots of nutrients that the plants need to grow, 2) they break up your soil so your plant’s roots have looser soil to grow and expand and 3) soil that’s been worked by worms take in water as much as 4x faster than soil not worked by worms.
Lessons learned? Each plant only produces one head of broccoli, so I’ll plant a lot more broccoli next year. I’ll plant the same variety next year – it was terrific. And because broccoli plants planted at the same time come online at the same time, I will stagger my plantings in several stages next year so I can enjoy broccoli over a longer period of time.
