I always just snap the sprouts off. It's not so much a second harvest, the
plants just seem to take off once they start "broccolling" as I call it, &
we're eating broccoli with every meal for a few weeks. I break off some
leaves to cook with the spears as well - deeeelicious!

Yes, the spears do "bolt" into the flowers, so you 've missed the spears on
that plant, but as I say, you can still use the leaves.

Ros

Hello,

I planted some broccoli seeds (purple sprouting) last year and now
have plants a couple of feet tall. They have purple sprouts forming.
In one plant, these have opened into yellow flowers. So when we eat
broccoli, are we really eating unopened flowers? I never knew that!

I presume that now is the time to harvest, before any more open into
flowers. I did a quick google search and it says that you should snap
off the stem and that the plant will grow side shoots over the next
couple of weeks, which can be harvested later. Is this right?

Does it make any difference if I snap, rather than cut? Will the
plants really produce a second harvest? It seems to me that they will
have to do a lot of growing to do that.

Thanks, and Happy Easter.

Chichester
West Sussex, UK.