Need help with my puny vegetables

[Going Green]

So I have a history of growing beautiful plants that don't produce, particularly broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and onions. I plant my onions from sets, and when it's time to harvest, most of them have barely grown, some have doubled, and one or two have tripled in size. It's a disappointing day. My main stem broccoli looks like a cut floret you'd see in a bag of frozen broccoli, same with the cauliflower, and the brussels sprouts don't get any bigger than a pea even though the plants are huge. I seem to have no problem with potatoes, peas, pumpkins, root vegetables or tomatoes. I thought maybe it was a nutrient problem so this year I planted everything in straight compost with the same results.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Ok yeah nutrient problem in the sensibility of you are the problem. That sounds harsh. It is not really. You are just heaping attention upon plants that grow so slow they seem like they do not care .

I suspect you need to get off the N train. NPK is up, down, all around and you are describing too much up.

Slow release N can often be from a protein rich fertilizer such as bloodmeal where the N is 1\5 or 1\6 of the protein percentage. The amino acids that come from the proteins are not often enough spoken about yet they are critical for the soil biota that all the internet harpies are babbling about when they try to describe a rich soil. This is also what is missing in a chemical fertilizer.

Even then the plants you describe do not use that much N. That sounds strange given your tomato description I know. What kind of soil prep are you doing and what type earth are you dealing with?

 

[Chuck]

So I have a history of growing beautiful plants that don't produce, particularly broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and onions. I plant my onions from sets, and when it's time to harvest, most of them have barely grown, some have doubled, and one or two have tripled in size. It's a disappointing day. My main stem broccoli looks like a cut floret you'd see in a bag of frozen broccoli, same with the cauliflower, and the brussels sprouts don't get any bigger than a pea even though the plants are huge. I seem to have no problem with potatoes, peas, pumpkins, root vegetables or tomatoes. I thought maybe it was a nutrient problem so this year I planted everything in straight compost with the same results.

What are you fertilizing with, how much and how often?

 

[Meadowlark]

You seem to be having problems with the Brassica family plants. I think I would look to the soil for possible cause. The Brassica family likes a ph of 5.5 to 6.5. Check that first. The Brassicas like lots of N2 readily available to them so that also could be a factor. Also, you should most definitely rotate your Brassicas and not plant in same spot each year....rotating broccli with califlower does not work, use a different family of plant.

As far as the onions go (not a Brassica), it can be a multitude of factors not the least of which is having the correct type for your area, planting at the correct times, planting properly, etc. More info would be helpful.