Broccoli Harvest Over and Done

The broccoli harvest was a success.  What is incredible about this is that I planted the broccoli on a whim.  We were at Rural King in early spring and one of the few vegetable plants they had for sale was broccoli.  I decided to give it a try but didn't realize until I got home that I had four plants in that one little pot.  

So I planted them in my elevated garden and they grew.  Then I had to do research to decide when they were ready for harvest.  I ended up taking a head of broccoli from the grocery store and comparing it to my broccoli.  I decided it was harvest time.  

Supposedly if you leave the plant it will produce small broccoli heads for a while.  They also say the fresher leaves are edible.  I need the space the broccoli was in to plant more jalapeño plants (at Mike's request) so I pulled the plants after I cut the broccoli head.  

Broccoli crop and one lone green pepper that looked ready to eat.  

I watched a You Tube video that said chickens loved broccoli leaves.
Ha!  I put the leaves in a treat box for the chickens and they weren't buying it.
However, when I pulled the next plant I just threw the leaves on the ground in the chicken coop and
the next thing I knew all that was left was the stalks.  

I made Parmesan Roasted Broccoli using Ina Garten's recipe.
I liked it but Mike felt I put too much lemon juice on it.
So Mike has been eating unadorned broccoli in his daily salad all this week.
I would call the broccoli harvest a success.
We will have to do it again next year.
I'm all for crops that require little work or space and that Mike will eat too.