Romanesco Broccoli Fractal Broccoli, Broccoflower

Brassica oleracea (Botrytis Group)

Broccoli grows best and produces highest yields when temperatures do not exceed 25°C and is not seriously damaged by temperatures down to -2°C. High summer temperatures reduce growth, decrease quality, and cause loose heads to form, which taste bitter.

Water: Water broccoli deeply and infrequently while trying to maintain even soil moisture. About 1-2 inches of water are required per week. Use drip irrigation if possible to conserve water. Applying mulch around the plant also helps conserve soil moisture and reduce weed growth.
Fertilization: Apply 1 cup per 10 feet of row of a nitrogen-based fertilizer (21-0-0 or 34-0-0) 4 weeks after transplanting or thinning to encourage vigorous plant growth. Apply an additional ¼ cup of nitrogen fertilizer when the broccoli head is the size of a quarter. After harvesting the main head, apply additional nitrogen fertilizer to encourage side shoot development. Place the fertilizer 6 inches to the side of the plant and irrigate it into the soil.

Mulches and Row Covers: Plastic mulches help conserve water, reduce weed growth and allow earlier planting and maturity, especially with transplants. Hot caps and fabric covers are used to protect seedlings and transplants from frosts. Fabric covers also protect young plants from insect pests. Apply organic mulches when temperatures rise. These will cool the soil and reduce water stress. Organic mulches such as grass clippings, straw, and shredded newspaper also help control weeds.

(http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/HG_Garden_2005-01.pdf)

Broccoli can be grown from seed or transplants.

Seeds should be planted ¼-¾ inch deep and thinned to the final stand when plants have 3-4 true leaves. Plants removed at thinning can be transplanted to adjacent areas.

Broccoli grown for transplants should be sown 5-6 weeks before the expected planting date. Transplants are used to provide earlier harvest. Transplants should have 4-6 mature leaves and a well developed root system before planting out.

Larger, more mature transplants are prone to form small, early heads (buttoning) which flower prematurely.

(http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/HG_Garden_2005-01.pdf)

These plants will grow well with Romanesco Broccoli:

These plants will not grow well with Romanesco Broccoli so avoid planting these within close proximity:

These pests are known to attack Romanesco Broccoli plants:

These problems and diseases are known to effect Romanesco Broccoli plants:

The word broccoli comes from the Italian broccolo, the diminuitive of brocco, meaning shoot, stalk.

Roman references to a cabbage-family vegetable that may have been broccoli are less than perfectly clear: the Roman natural history writer, Pliny the Elder, wrote about a vegetable that fit the description of broccoli. This would imply that the Romans grew their own broccoli for culinary uses during the 1st century. Some vegetable scholars recognize broccoli in the cookbook of Apicius.

Broccoli was an Italian vegetable, as its name suggests, long before it was eaten elsewhere. At that time it was a sprouting type, not the single large head that is seen today. It is first mentioned in France in 1560, but in 1724 broccoli was still so unfamiliar in England that Philip Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary (1724 edition) referred to it as a stranger in England and explained it as “sprout colli-flower” or “Italian asparagus.” In the American colonies, Thomas Jefferson was also an experimenting gardener with a wide circle of European correspondents, from whom he got packets of seeds for rare vegetables. He noted the planting of broccoli at Monticello along with radishes, lettuce, and cauliflower on May 27, 1767. Nevertheless, broccoli remained exotic in American gardens. In 1775, John Randolph, in A Treatise on Gardening by a Citizen of Virginia, felt he had to explain about broccoli: “The stems will eat like Asparagus, and the heads like cauliflower.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broccoli