Late Fall Harvest: Broccoli

Things in the garden have slowed down to a crawl here at the end of November.  There are still a few crops that are happily humming along blissfully unaffected by the low night time temps here.  The broccoli is one of them.  I tend to be a lazy gardener when it comes to some things and I am not very good about cleaning up some crops after I harvest them.  I picked my main harvest of broccoli in September but never took the time to cut down the plants after I cut off the good sized heads.  I was rewarded with a second harvest of side shoots, some of which were making sizable heads too.  I already have plenty of frozen broccoli so I am using this bonus harvest fresh from the garden as I go into winter.  If I can make a little more room in the freezer I may freeze one more round before it gets too cold since I know that these plants likely won't survive the deep cold that is just around the corner.

Gardening will never cease to amaze me.  Even when you think that all is lost with a crop, some times they are tenacious and reward even your neglect with wholesome goodness.  This year I had to replant my broccoli several times and this final planting was from starts that I bought from a local nursery.  It was a last ditch effort that paid off even though they were off to a late start this season.  I was lucky that they didn't simply bolt in the heat of the summer.  I think that our slightly cooler than normal summer and the abundant rainfall helped this crop mature into some beautiful huge heads of broccoli.  I believe that most of my heads were over three pounds each and even these side shoots have become quite large considering that they are mostly an afterthought.  I hadn't paid much attention to them after the main harvest so when I noticed that I was going to be able to add more pounds to my broccoli harvest tally I was very happy.