The secret to the best-tasting broccoli is in the seasoning — not the spices, mind you, but the time of year. Broccoli that matures during cool weather produces healthy heads that taste sweeter than those you pick at any other time.

Broccoli grows best in fall because spring conditions may be unpredictable. Long, cool springs, for example, cause young transplants to form small, early heads. If temperatures heat up early in spring, heat-stressed broccoli opens its flower buds prematurely, and high temperatures as broccoli matures can cause bitter, loose heads to form, with smaller and less tasty florets.

Here's what you need to know about planting the perfect veggies.

When to Plant

You can easily calculate the perfect time to plant broccoli seeds this fall. If you want to sow seeds directly in the garden, do so about 85 to 100 days before the average first fall frost in your area. If you prefer to grow from transplants, figure the date for getting your plants in the ground by adding 10 days to the "days to maturity" for the variety you're growing and then counting backwards from your expected first fall frost date.

Where to Plant

Broccoli grows best in full sun and where the soil is slightly acidic — with the pH between 6.0 and 6.8 — fertile, and well-drained, yet consistently moist and rich in organic matter. The right pH and the organic matter help ensure that nutrients, particularly essential micronutrients like boron, are readily available. A boron deficiency can cause broccoli to develop hollow stems, but adding too much is toxic to plants, so a soil test is essential.

Fall broccoli has specific spacing requirements. If you're gardening in a raised bed, space your plants 15 to 18 inches apart; for gardening in rows, set the transplants 18 to 24 inches apart within the row and space the rows 24 to 36 inches apart. Be sure to set transplants slightly deeper in the ground than they were in the pot.

Keep Them Nourished

Broccoli is a moderately heavy feeder, so work in 2 to 4 inches of rich compost or a thin layer of well-aged manure before planting. Rabbit manure is a personal favorite, though most any aged manure or compost produces big and tasty heads.

After you've harvested a plant's central head, you can encourage extended side-shoot production by scratching a little nitrogen-rich fertilizer such as fish meal or aged manure into the soil around its base.

Shelter From the Cold

Freezing temperatures can cause chilling injury that turns buds purple and sometimes softens heads, though they are still good to eat. "I've had broccoli freeze solid, and when it thawed out it was fine," says Atina Diffley, co-owner of Gardens of Eagan Organic Farm in Minnesota. Just don't let heads freeze and thaw repeatedly.

Offer cold-weather protection with floating row covers, which provide an additional 4 to 8 degrees worth of warmth — shielding harvests from heavy freezes and extending the season by up to four weeks. You can also cover broccoli with tunnels or a cold frame, which can boost daytime temperatures by 10 to 30 degrees.

Protect Against Pests

Row covers provide some protection from pest insects, but the best protection is to grow healthy plants — and that begins with healthy soil, says Colby Eierman, director of gardens at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, in Napa. Insect pestsare generally less prevalent in fall than in spring.

But if your broccoli does suffer an infestation of destructive caterpillar pests such as cabbage loopers, you can control them with Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, a naturally occurring bacteria that stops the pests from chewing but is harmless to beneficial insects.

Harvest Hints

For best flavor, harvest broccoli heads while the buds are just starting to swell but before the yellow petals start to show. Keep an eye on the head because when it begins to spread open, the individual buds start to flower. Harvest the central head by cutting the stalk at a slant, about five to eight inches below the head. This encourages side-shoot production for continued harvests.

Diffley says it's important to harvest broccoli in the morning before the plants heat up, because broccoli has a really high respiration rate. "Once the heat sets in, you need to cool it down quickly, or it's not going to hold up well and taste like it should," she says.

Now that you're set to grow the best-tasting broccoli ever, be sure to keep that flavor intact by not overcooking. Check out the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen's favorite way to prepare broccoli below:

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