Year End Broccoli and Brussel Sprout Harvesting

Now that the cold weather is here and a frost has pretty much eliminated most of the garden I now am focusing on harvesting broccoli and brussel sprouts.  I also have a couple of kale plants which I may start harvesting, but they were planted later than my broccoli and may not get big enough to pick before a ground freeze occurs.   Strawberries are also done and they are now covered with straw for the winter along with my rhubarb.

Before I get into the fall harvests I just want to mention the eggplants that were picked a couple of weeks ago before the frost came to my garden.  A little more than a half a dozen of them were picked and with all the plants I grew I was able to get quite a few of them in total.  This was the last eggplant harvest of the season and was not a small one.

Broccoli plants this season are growing well and are producing large to medium heads along with decent sized side shoots.  Once the head is cut the side shoots are what you are looking for and those will be used for many different things.  I have only cut a couple of them this year at the moment, but I will have others that I need to cut during the week.  The first head I cut is one of the largest ones this year.  Hopefully I will get more big heads, but as long as they continue to produce I will be happy with that.

Brussel sprouts are pretty much done for the season and before they were finished I decided to pick them this season.  I picked about half of the brussel sprouts that were growing on the plant stalk and left half of them on.  I was able to get a few pounds of brussel sprouts from this harvest and I will probably get a similar amount from the rest that are still growing on the plant.