Brussel sprouts question

[Gary350]

My Brussels sprout plants keep getting taller. They are 3 feet tall now. There are tiny baby Brussels sprouts full length of the stalk problem 100 Brussels sprouts per stalk. 2 Brussels sprouts near the soil are the size of golf balls. 2 Brussels sprouts above those are 1" diameter all the rest are babies.

Will the Brussels sprouts near the soil be ready to harvest before the Brussels sprouts near the top?

OR

Will all the Brussels sprouts become large and ready to harvest all at the same time?

Weather here is warming up 85 degrees F.

[grrlgeek]

You can do multiple harvests starting with the larger ones on the bottom, and work your way up. To get everything to be done at once you need to pinch out the growing tip so the plant stops upward growth and focuses all its energy on finishing the florets.

All my books (which seem to be written for arctic gardening) talk about doing that with a fall crop about 4 weeks before the first frost since they're better young, and when bitten by a couple of frosts. They'll open up and not taste as good when the weather gets hot. If it were me, I'd pinch the tip and start harvesting.

I took all mine a month ago. The ones near the top were only about the size of a large marble. I didn't pinch the tip, but next year I will because while the little ones were tasty, I'd rather they had gotten bigger and more uniform in size, even if I had gotten a couple fewer.

[jal_ut]

watch the size of the individual buds in the heads. You want to pick it as the buds get larger, but before they open.