Eat Broccoli Leaves? Brussels Sprouts? Cauliflower?

I have big, beautiful broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, and Cauliflower plants that aren't producing yet. Is there something I can do with their leaves? Can they be used like cabbage? Cooked? Raw? Mixed in with kale?

Yes to all of that!  Smoothies, too.  I grow broccoli and bs just for the leaves since I can't get them to do much else, but they are usually puny.
Lucky you.  Wish I had big beautiful leaves....  Do you have photos so I can ?
CC

On the sprout plant only take the bigger older best quality lower outer leaves , don't take them from the crown of the plant or you'll stunt it .
 Good strong healthy Brussels sprouts plants can easily reach three foot six tall ( 1.1 mtr )

 When I was a kid in the 1950's Mum & Dad used to cut the sprouts off the stems from the bottom up , starting a few weeks after the first frosts in the 21 x 21 foot square of sprout plants  .

This carried on even in deepest winter through to March ,  just as cabbage greens became very expensive  due to scarcity after winter & when the spring greens hadn't quite reached a decent enough size to take two for the six of us .

So on Saturday afternoons after Dad got home from work , he'd use a big heavy spade to dig two whole sprout plants up and put them in the shade of the shed on the sunless North side .  During the week Mum would take off the remaining sprouts then use the axe to chop off the whole crown for us to have as a dark cabbage . The stripped stalk & roots were then chopped into 6 inch lengths which we fed to our meat rabbits or the chickens . as fresh greens.

plantoid wrote:On the sprout plant only take the bigger older best quality lower outer leaves , don't take them from the crown of the plant or you'll stunt it .
 Good strong healthy Brussels sprouts plants can easily reach three foot six tall ( 1.1 mtr )

 When I was a kid in the 1950's Mum & Dad used to cut the sprouts off the stems from the bottom up , starting a few weeks after the first frosts in the 21 x 21 foot square of sprout plants  .

This carried on even in deepest winter through to March ,  just as cabbage greens became very expensive  due to scarcity after winter & when the spring greens hadn't quite reached a decent enough size to take two for the six of us .

So on Saturday afternoons after Dad got home from work , he'd use a big heavy spade to dig two whole sprout plants up and put them in the shade of the shed on the sunless North side .  During the week Mum would take off the remaining sprouts then use the axe to chop off the whole crown for us to have as a dark cabbage . The stripped stalk & roots were then chopped into 6 inch lengths which we fed to our meat rabbits or the chickens . as fresh greens.

Wow! I have yet to see an actual sprout or broccoli head but we will definitely be eating leaves, today.

CapeCoddess wrote:Yes to all of that!  Smoothies, too.  I grow broccoli and bs just for the leaves since I can't get them to do much else, but they are usually puny.
Lucky you.  Wish I had big beautiful leaves....  Do you have photos so I can   ?
CC

YIKES! I don't know if I have broccoli or Brussels Sprouts. I think it's broccoli so I'll plant more Brussels Sprouts, today. 

Broccoli?


Kale


Cauliflower

countrynaturals wrote:I have big, beautiful broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, and Cauliflower plants that aren't producing yet. Is there something I can do with their leaves? Can they be used like cabbage? Cooked? Raw? Mixed in with kale?

I have eaten leaves from my broccoli and cauliflower.  I cut them up thinly and saute them without the stem with garlic or onion.  I don't harvest more than 20% from the growing plant.  Other people use the very large leaves for stuffing with a type of ground meat.

Thanks Sanderson!

Didn't realize that you could eat the flowers, too. I mean, I've put them in smoothies but never tasted one. Good to know. Wonder if we can eat radish flowers, too, and if they are spicy...?

countrynaturals wrote:

plantoid wrote:On the sprout plant only take the bigger older best quality lower outer leaves , don't take them from the crown of the plant or you'll stunt it .
 Good strong healthy Brussels sprouts plants can easily reach three foot six tall ( 1.1 mtr )

 When I was a kid in the 1950's Mum & Dad used to cut the sprouts off the stems from the bottom up , starting a few weeks after the first frosts in the 21 x 21 foot square of sprout plants  .

This carried on even in deepest winter through to March ,  just as cabbage greens became very expensive  due to scarcity after winter & when the spring greens hadn't quite reached a decent enough size to take two for the six of us .

So on Saturday afternoons after Dad got home from work , he'd use a big heavy spade to dig two whole sprout plants up and put them in the shade of the shed on the sunless North side .  During the week Mum would take off the remaining sprouts then use the axe to chop off the whole crown for us to have as a dark cabbage . The stripped stalk & roots were then chopped into 6 inch lengths which we fed to our meat rabbits or the chickens . as fresh greens.

Wow! I have yet to see an actual sprout or broccoli head but we will definitely be eating leaves, today.

 Put ,  "  Brussels sprout tops "  into Google the look in Google images .

  The best tops are from the tight spiral plants as they are tighter on spread than a plant that all leggy & sparsely populated with Brussels .

 If ever you get seeds that give you 3 foot plus stalks let two run to seed  , for theses days most sprouts are commercial strains with short 2 foot long easily harvested by machinery stalks with not much top .

Well, I figured out why I haven't been getting any Brussels sprouts plants. My seeds are from 2012.