Friday Night Special: Fresh Broccoli

Friday at our house is normally Pizza Night. Tonight we are straying from this and having a “proper” dinner: BBQ pork chops, egg noodles and broccoli.  The reason for this - the broccoli in the garden is threatening to flower so it’s time to harvest and eat it.

Broccoli starting to flower

Broccoli Flowers

This will technically be my second picking of broccoli; a few weeks ago I picked a few small pieces because they were starting to flower.  After being picked and washed they sat in the fridge for a few days and started to wilt so I want to eat this batch right away.

I learnt some interesting facts about broccoli this year.  I learnt that it prefers a cooler climate and will flower quickly in warmer temperatures, that when you pick the main stock of the plant it will start to grow other floret’s where the leaves meet the stock, when you remove the florets from the plant do so by cutting on an angle so water doesn’t pool on the cut stem or it will rot, and that when you get big leafy plants with little florets if you break off the big leaves the florets will grow larger quicker.  I also learnt that I can plant the plants a lot closer together and that I need a lot more plants if I want more than a few meals.

This year I only planted 4 plants: two are extremely stunted, one is mediocre at best, and one is flourishing.  All four plants came from the same greenhouse, were planted at the same time, and were the same size at planting so I don’t know what happened.  I have a feeling the roots may give me some insight into this, but that will have to wait until we pull the garden in the fall.  Since only one plant is producing anything significant, hopefully we will still be able to get more broccoli this year.

Surprisingly I didn’t have any trouble with bugs in the florets – knowing my luck next year this probably won’t be the case.  Because I was worried about the bugs I was a proactive and keep my plants dusted with DE and this seems to have done the trick.

Like most vegetables we eat with a meal, we steam broccoli.  The fresher it is the faster it cooks and the more vibrant the color is.  We usually serve it will a little Becel and occasionally some grated cheese.  We like to make veggie trays with dip and also eat a lot of raw broccoli this way but I didn’t think my harvest will extend past this dinner.



My only happy plant.



Empty Plant and Harvested Broccoli



Anyway, here’s to the first feast of our garden fresh broccoli! Cheers!