Never heard that one macky. I think they all prefer pretty fertile soil. I think it's all about a timing thing. I've had differently timed successions of broccoli and cauli in the same plot turn out different sized heads. I can plant them from Aug-Feb, but I notice the closer I get to the winter solstice to planting, the smaller the head. Which makes sense because the amount of sunlight. I also notice that my winter harvests(when planted in late/summer/early fall) are a bit better than my early summer summer harvests. With my Brussels, I get big plants and I get sprouts. They're just always loose leaf sprouts. I read last year that July is supposed to be optimum for them here, so I'll give it one more shot I don't know how that's supposed to work out though -- our summers don't really get going until late july. Kevin

Some do and some don't. Try both and see which works best for you. The theory is that trimming them back to about 1" out from the main stem allows the sprouts to grow bigger/rounder as they aren't compressed by the branches and they get better sun exposure. You can see in your photo how crowded it can get in there. But don't remove them until the sprout is at least thumbtip size and don't trim too close and undermine the sprout itself. Based on your photo I'd trim off about 4-5 leaves coming up from the bottom and leave the rest for a bit more as the sprouts are still pretty small. Toward harvest time (after a good fall frost) you'll find yourself with a stalk with just a top tuft of leaves. Then just harvest the whole stalk. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: pics of trimmed and untrimmed BS plants

Without a picture, my guess would be cabbage worms or loopers. They are green caterpillars that are surprisingly difficult to find on the plants. Spraying with Bt will kill them. Rodney

These were not just a few aphids! They were covering the plants and down into the leaves of the buds! Yuk! I sprayed before pulling because there were so many and I didn't want to shake them (live) all over the rest of the garden! I think they've already hit my new broccoli. I've never HAD aphids in the 6-7 years I've been vege gardening. What I have now is chard, some snow peas, some late green beans, I'm just pulling up the tomatoes, some broccoli and I have lettuce and beets ready to plant. Do aphids bother any of these, or should I shut down the garden for the winter?