When to Plant Broccoli in North Carolina? – A Gardener’s Guide

When to plant broccoli in Northern Carolina? Generally speaking, you should aim to plant during spring from January 28 until May 29 indoors; and from February 25 until April 19 outdoors. For fall, it’s August 1 to September 15.

This article will serve as your in-depth manual to the best dates for each city or county, as well as, what varieties are well-suited for North Carolina’s climate and helpful insights for a bountiful harvest.

Best Time to Plant Broccoli in North Carolina

Broccoli is known to be a cool-season crop with a hardiness of 2-11 but before you start plotting out a vegetable planting calendar, it’s vital to know your hardiness zone and the frost dates to know when it is too late to plant broccoli.

If you’re growing broccoli in NC, you should know the region covers seven zones well-suited for this cruciferous vegetable specifically:

 

1. 5b
2. 6a
3. 6b
4. 7a
5. 7b
6. 8a
7. 8b

When it comes to last frost dates, a general outlook for most of the Tar Heel State is from the 1st of April until the 15th; a minority of western NC is from the 16th of April until the 15th of May; a small part of eastern NC is from the 1st until the 31st of March.

Alternatively, most of the state gets its first frost dates from the 16th until the end of October, with specific areas in the west and east getting theirs from the 1st of October until the 15th and the 1st of November until the 15th, respectively.

1. Spring planting is ideal and you want to start planting your broccoli seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost dates and sow outdoors or transplanted 2-3 weeks before the last frost dates.
2. Warmer climates like NC fall can accommodate planting during this season but only for a shorter time. The rule of thumb is to plant 12-14 weeks before the first frost dates, which typically falls from the 1st of August until the 15th of September.

To save you the trouble of calculations, we’ve laid out the approximate dates of when it’s best to plant your broccoli seeds for the major cities and towns of North Carolina in both indoor and outdoor scenarios:

Tips to Grow Broccoli Successfully in North Carolina

Now that we’ve discussed the specific growing seasons, let’s move on to an NC planting guide for broccoli:

1. Choosing A Site

1. Well-draining soil: sandy loam to clay loam with a pH level of 5.8-6.5
2. Exposed to full sun for 6-8 hours each day with partial shade

2. Planting

1. For outdoors spacing, it’s 3 inches apart with a half-inch depth
2. For plants grown indoors first, transplant outdoors with 12 to 20 inches in between

3. Growing

1. Make sure it gets a weekly dose of 1-1.5 inches of water.
2. You can lessen weed maintenance and at the same time improve the moisture levels of the soil by adding mulch made of organic

4. Harvesting

1. It’s best to harvest the heads before they flower, preferably, in the morning.
2. To harvest, make a diagonal cut, about 6 inches of the stem from the head.

5. Broccoli Varieties

Here are the different types of broccoli plants perfect for North Carolina:

1. Arcadia
2. Belstar
3. Calabrese
4. DeCicco
5. Early Dividend
6. Flash
7. Green Duke
8. Green Goliath
9. Green Magic
10. Imperial
11. Marathon
12. Paragon
13. Waltham 29

Conclusion

Whether you prefer the more diverse spring calendar or the limited fall planting, knowing when to plant broccoli in North Carolina is just one key step in the entire process to maximize the growing potential of your veggies.

Starting from understanding NC’s hardiness zones, the corresponding frost dates, and what they mean for the planting calendar, we’ve also discussed paying close attention to soil conditions and spacing, plus hacks for care and harvest. Happy planting!