Broccoli · Qingdao, Shandong, China
When to plant broccoli in Qingdao
Main outdoor window
23 Feb - 16 Mar
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
9 March
In Qingdao, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
24 Apr - 24 May
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Qingdao
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
19 Jan - 9 Feb
Seven weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow for autumn
11 Aug - 1 Sep
Counting back 104 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Plant out
23 Feb - 16 Mar
Two weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
24 Apr - 24 May
Broccoli through the year
Against the frost risk in Qingdao
Why these dates
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.
Transplants take -6C. Purple sprouting types are far hardier and are grown deliberately through winter for a spring crop.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Broccoli are timed from 7 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 2 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Qingdao.
The median frost-free season here is 280 days, against 60 to 90 days to maturity for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Qingdao
Other vegetables to time
Growing broccoli in Qingdao
When should I plant broccoli in Qingdao?
Aim for 23 Feb - 16 Mar in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 6-27 Mar - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will broccoli be ready to harvest in Qingdao?
Expect to start picking around 24 Apr - 24 May, based on 60 to 90 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will broccoli tolerate?
Transplants take -6C. Purple sprouting types are far hardier and are grown deliberately through winter for a spring crop.