Harvesting Purple Sprouting Broccoli

[elmwoodlouise]

I’d be very grateful for some advice on how best to harvest PSB to optimize my harvest. Each flower shoot has a terminal floret and several side florets. I assume that I should not remove the whole of the side shoot so I have been cutting them a few inches long including some side buds but leaving a few small buds on the stump of the side stem to enlarge. Presumably if I cut the side stem off flush with the main stem no new side shoots will develop? Is this correct or is there a better way?

[charles]

 Hi Louise, good that you are thinking about this because good picking helps increase harvests. 
You can do it either way, I prefer the one you describe and leaving some stem with its small buds is good in cold weather when it takes longer for new stems to emerge.

However you pick, the stems become thinner with time and then a little woody. Last year I had longest harvests from a "Late Purple Sprouting" variety, because of the wet and cool spring, so a lot depends on weather as well as how you pick it.

[elmwoodlouise]

Thanks Charles, I’ll carry on as I am then. They are not coming thick and fast as it is so cold but hopefully they’ll carry on for a while yet.

[Author]

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