Sounds like the plant is buttoning. It happens when the plant is stressed while young and it never fully recovers (it's a big problem with store bought transplants.) Without pictures, it's hard to determine. I run a website about gardening and have pages dedicated to broccoli. Check out the following link: http://www.vegetable-gardening-made-simple.com/growing-broccoli.html Surf through the broccoli pages. They have a lot of pictures of what you should be seeing as the plant grows and I actually used Packman broccoli the year I took the photos for these pages, so this should definitely be what you should be seeing if your plants are healthy. If your getting side shoots before you harvested the main head, then likely the plant is buttoning (sorry, I haven't had a chance to write about that yet so no pics for that.) If the plant is buttoning, it is still edible, just watch the heads and harvest them as you normally would, just realize they will be small. You won't get the 8 inch grocery store looking heads of broccoli. You can also harvest some of the leaves from the plants and eat those. They can be cooked up much like kale, spinach, or swiss chard. I have a recipe on the site for sauteed brussel sprout leaves that is delicious and you can substitute broccoli leaves instead for the same recipe. Good luck! ~Kelly Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetable Gardening Made Simple

I had good luck with broccoli this year - more than my meat-eating family wanted to eat! (I just couldn't eat that much myself). However, with our -finally - warming weather, most of it has gone to flower. Still a few young ones that are weathering it OK, but our temps are still in the 60-70 range, so the bulk of the plants have bolted. I left a few flowering ones, because I noticed the bees preferred them, and as I just planted beans, peppers, tomatoes, squash - was hoping they would visit those nearby, and help with pollinating. I think I'd toss the plant otherwise, it is just taking up space, unless you want it as a pollinator, the crops it produces will be inferior I'm afraid. Also - I have a few of last years peppers that wintered over, and the Poblano is producing some nice, small peppers - which we are enjoying, but I feel it is better to start new peppers, rather than depending on them perennially. They also take up space as perennials, and I prefer to plant something else in their small cubicle in my box. Bejay

Your Brussels sprouts sure are huge to not have many visible sprouts. The summer heat must have been preventing them from growing sprouts. Mine are only a foot tall and have sprouts growing all down the stem now. However, my climate is different and our recent (finally) cooler weather has probably stimulated them to begin growing sprouts. I also planted mine in September.

hi there jimbob17 looks like you might have had a few slugs too, they might be what caused the marks on your broccoli stems (I can't really see the stems on the photo). If your unlucky it could be a Pathogen, bacterial or fungal.Check out some photos online of Black rot, black leg, black leaf spot and grey leaf spot. If canola is grown near you the likelyhood of these diseases rises significantly. If you don't like what you see, pull up your brassicas and bag them, at the first opportunity burn or tip them. Don't plant them in that spot again for a min of 3 years There are however a number of less sinister possibilities, the aforementioned slugs, with yellowing caused by nutrient deficiency. Do a ph test (kits are usually available at nurseries and produce stores), to grow brassicas you need a sweet soil - ph 6.5 to 7. Another cause of deficiency is water logging so check your drainage (dig a hole fill it with water and see how long it takes to empty, ideally less than an hour in a vegie garden) if drainage is slow build up your beds and NEVER EVER walk on them when their damp. Sometimes broccoli just seems to get tired and lanky you could try cutting off all the old leaves and stems and side dressing with dynamic lifter or blood and bone, or some rotted manure. I"ve had some born again broccoli after this treatment. Be sure to practice crop rotation waiting a few years before you plant any brassica family crops in this spot again. all the best janeymax