If you’ve been growing Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants for the first time this summer, then you may be unsure when to harvest the broccoli. Wait until you see the ‘leader’ form on the main stalk. Depending on when you planted your broccoli, this could be anytime between very early spring and late spring.
Cut the broccoli head off cleanly, using a knife, so that you get the floret and a couple of inches of stalk. Once this one has been harvested, the side shoots will start to grow faster. As they grow to a decent size, harvest them in the same way, cutting them off sharply with a good amount of stalk, and a couple of leaves here and there too. It’ll keep producing for about a month after that first floret is harvested.
Be sure to harvest florets before the little flowers start to open though as it loses flavour at this point.
Towards the end of the season, the spears are likely to become quite spindly, with very thin stems and small florets that flower before the stalk fattens up – we’d recommend just harvesting even though they are very small and tossing them into a stir-fry.
