Gadenin日本語Get the appThe buds are the clock, not the calendar
A shoot is ready when the cluster of buds at its tip is still tightly closed, the individual buds are green with at most a hint of yellow showing between them, and the stem below snaps cleanly rather than bending. That is the whole test. Length is not a useful guide, because a shoot in cool weather will stand at eight inches (20 cm) with tight buds while one in a warm week opens at four.
Once a few flowers have opened, the shoot is not ruined, but it changes. The stem toughens quickly, the flavor turns noticeably more bitter, and the plant starts putting resources into setting seed instead of pushing the next side shoot. A shoot that is a quarter in open flower is still worth eating. One in full flower should be cut off and composted so the plant keeps working.
In cool spring weather you have three or four days of grace between tight bud and open flower. In a warm spell, and especially after a run of mild nights, that drops to a day or two. This is why the crop is harvested on a rhythm rather than a schedule: walk the bed every second or third day from the first cut until the flush is over, and be prepared to go daily in warm weather.
| Bud stage | Stem | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Buds tight, uniformly green | Snaps cleanly | Ideal; cut now |
| Yellow showing between buds | Snaps cleanly | Cut today; it opens tomorrow |
| A few flowers open | Snaps low, tough higher up | Still good; cut short and use soon |
| Half the cluster in flower | Fibrous | Cut and compost; not worth eating |
| Pods forming | Woody | Remove the whole stem to the base |
Cut the main shoot low and deliberately
The first shoot to rise from the center is the thickest one you will get, and how you cut it decides the rest of the season. Cut it four to six inches (10 to 15 cm) below the bud cluster, taking as much tender stem as snaps easily, and make the cut just above a leaf joint. Leave at least four or five good leaf joints on the stump below your cut. Each of those joints is a side shoot waiting to happen.
Cut on a slant so water runs off the stub rather than sitting on it, and use something sharp. A crushed or torn stem heals badly, which invites rot into exactly the tissue you need alive. Cutting in the morning, while the shoots are full of water, gives noticeably crisper stems than cutting in the afternoon heat.
Do not be timid and take only the top two inches. A high cut leaves a long bare stub that dies back to the joint anyway, and the die-back can run further than you intended. Cutting decisively at a joint gives you more food and a cleaner, faster response.
- Find the lowest point that snaps Run your thumb down the shoot and bend it gently every inch. Where it snaps cleanly is the boundary between tender and fibrous. Cut there, or just above the nearest leaf joint below it.
- Cut at a slant with a sharp blade A clean, angled cut sheds water and heals fast. Crushed stems from blunt pruners or a twisting pull rot back into the stump and cost you the side shoots below.
- Count the joints you leave behind Leave four or five leaf joints with healthy leaves on the stump. These are the source of the next flush. If you have left fewer than three, you cut too low and the plant will finish early.
- Return every two or three days Side shoots come in waves rather than all at once. Walk the bed on a fixed rhythm and cut everything at tight bud, even the small ones. Leaving small shoots to size up simply lets them flower.
The side shoot flush is the real crop
Within about a week of the main cut, shoots start extending from the leaf joints you left. The first round is nearly as thick as the main shoot. The second round, from joints further down and from the joints on the shoots you have already cut, is thinner but comes in greater numbers. A well-fed, well-spaced plant will run through four or five rounds like this over four to seven weeks.
Keep cutting even when the shoots get small. A pencil-thin shoot with tight buds is perfectly good eating and, more importantly, removing it keeps the plant from flowering. The moment you let flowers open and pods start to form anywhere on the plant, the whole plant reads that as its job being done and the flush stops within days.
The end comes when the new shoots emerge already showing color, no longer than a finger, and open the day after they appear. That is the plant giving up, and no amount of feeding turns it around. Clear those plants and use the ground, because a bed left standing in flower is also a nursery for the aphids that will move onto your summer brassicas.
Keeping what you cut, and what to write down
Cut shoots stay crisp for about four days in the fridge if you keep them from drying out: stand them upright in an inch of water like a bunch of flowers, or wrap them loosely in a damp cloth in a bag. Do not wash them until you use them, because water sitting in the bud cluster turns it slimy overnight. They freeze well after a two-minute blanch, which is worth doing because the harvest arrives in a rush.
Record the date of your first main-shoot cut and the date of your last usable cut, and count the weeks between. That number is the single best measure of whether your spacing, autumn feeding and spring watering were right, and it is far more informative than total weight. Note the count of usable shoots per plant too if you can face it; the difference between a good plant and a poor one in the same row is often threefold and usually traces back to something you can see in the record.
If a warm spell is forecast and half the bed is close to opening, cut everything that is even nearly ready rather than waiting for perfect. Shoots cut slightly early are excellent. Shoots left three warm days too long are only fit for the compost pile.