Gardening 101: When to harvest Broccoli? and my first broccoli of the season!!!

Today's harvest - 2 broccoli heads and a lot of lettuce and arugula

Yeah!!!! My first Broccoli of the season!!! I am so excited I harvested our first 2 heads of broccoli today - I have been keeping an eye on them for about 2 days now and today they were ready to eat!! I cooked one head for dinner and the other is resting in a glass of water in my fridge for tomorrow!!!

So you are probably wondering, how do you know when the heads are ready? When the heads first appear they look like ping pong balls, then they turn into tennis balls, then into baseballs.

Still not ready

depending on the type of broccoli, by the time they get to the size of a grapefruit you need to watch carefully everyday.

Ready

When you see the little florets start to loosen a little (they are not tight together) it is time to harvest. If you wait to long they will open and flower (nice little yellow flowers)

Now, cut the main head from the plant about 3 inches from the stalk but leave the plant intact. In a couple of days you'll see little side shoots (they look like broccolini) popping up everywhere - These are even more delicious than the main head in my opinion.  You need to harvest the broccoli shoots every day or two as they go to flower quickly. If that happens the plant will stop producing shoots. But if you harvest them you will have broccoli all the way until the first snow of the year!!!