Broccoli side shoots
October did turn out to
be the
month of the broccoli.
Every day or so, we'd have a huge helping and eat every sprig and chunk
--- nothing tastes better than homegrown broccoli in season.
In the spring, I cut my
broccoli heads low, peel off the woody skin near the stalk base, and
cook up the whole kit and caboodle. In the winter, though, I
don't have anything else 
begging to fill the broccoli
space, so I cut the heads high, leaving most of the stem behind.
Within a week or two, side shoots come popping up, which I cut and eat
just like the original head.
This endless broccoli
crop continues until the first killing frost --- and since we've dodged
even a light frost so far this fall, that might be a while! The
lack of frost means we're still eating raspberries too, and they're
even better in cool weather. Dare I suggest we may still be
enjoying fresh berries at Thanksgiving?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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What a contrast with the growing season where we live, Ontario, Canada, several hours north of the city of Toronto. It is snowing this morning! The main crops here are maple syrup and cranberries, rocks, bush and bog. Not much in between for the home gardener, too many bears, deer, wild turkeys, coyotes, foxes etc. who love helping themselves to anything edible.