dubele
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Location: Southeastern, Pa

broccoli

Now that I harvested the main broccoli head, I am going to wait for the side shoots to mature.

My question is whether I can cut back some leaves or not. Right now they are quite large...the biggest one's being close to 18 inches in diameter....can't walk up the isle at all!!

Thanks,
Doug

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applestar
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If you want side-shoots, I don't think you should cut any leaves....

DoubleDogFarm
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Doug,

I'm not sure on the leaf removal. I've always left them on. If you decide to remove a few, eat them.

dubele
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Location: Southeastern, Pa

Can you eat the leaves? I thought I heard you can eat the small ones, but the big ones are not very good.

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jal_ut
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Broccoli leaves are edible. Sometimes there is a large gap between edible and palatable. All you could do is try a few and then you would know if they are palatable.

I am with applestar on this. If you want side shoots, don't cut the leaves.

JenniferG
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My cat keeps stealing bites of the leaves of my broccoli plants (which are still pretty new so the leaves aren't huge), so I guess they're palatable to kitties at least. :-P

brekehan
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Keep all the leaves you can. After my brocolli was done with the main head, leaves grew much slower or not at all until all that was left was stem. It never grew more leaves although I got more broccoli from side shoots and many bags of of seed. Those big beatiful leaves have few replacements.

garden5
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Keep the leaves, the plant needs them so it has enough energy to produce side-shoots.



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