The Broccoli Wins

First, I'll admit, I've been puzzled with my many broccoli sprout successes over the summer.  There's nothing broccoli hates more than hot weather.  Was it the quality of the seeds?  I don't think so.  They were seeds I've had for a long time and had lots of trouble with.  Was it the number of cosmic rays?  The broccoli grew like weeds all summer for no good reason.  

But suddenly I realized I had a crop failure.  Why?  I have read what others think.  I didn't rinse them often enough.  How often?  Hourly.  Get up twice at night and rinse them.  Grow them in the refrigerator.  Drain them endlessly, which they will need because you keep smothering them with water.  Even suggestions that you speak words of encouragement to them.  I'm afraid to do that.  They might get sassy and rebel.  

They have rebelled in fact.  You don't want that.  If you've ever decided not to clean out the refrigerator because you can't face what you might find, you'll know the sort of dread I faced when the broccoli decided to head south.  

So I puzzled over quelling the broccoli rebellion.  Meantime, more broccoli sprout triumphs in the war they have decided to wage against me.  

What to do?  I took them into the bedroom once and tried to grow them there.  The bedroom filled with gnats.  I put them in a clear plastic bin with a lid.  The gnats loved it.  

I put them in the refrigerator.  I turned up the air conditioning.  Grow lights?  No.  More sunlight?  No.  Less sunlight? No.  Take them out to the shed?  Pamper them?  There is no amount of pampering that will satisfy a broccoli sprout. Build them their own little climate controlled house?   Someone is selling a tray for about $200 with little replaceable pads ($35 each) for growing "delicious, nutritious" broccoli sprouts.  Has it come to that?  Maybe a regular old plastic tray with paper towels on the bottom to anchor the roots.  

If it weren't for all the cauliflower the health food charities gave me, I would have gotten no sulforaphane at all yesterday.  

The broccoli won again today.  The alfalfa is growing like weeds.