I sow what I can use in a week, harvest, rip them out and plant something else. If you sow every couple of weeks you have them all season.

cmdrzog: Sounds like your results are similar to mine. That's a lot of work for just a couple of meals. I can't imagine that the commercial growers have the same results. This year I'm going to follow up with turnips. The taste of the greens is strikingly similar, and I can keep a steady flow of them growing as I pick.

I am fairly sure the commercial growers prefer a 1 cut harvest. Many vegetables are sow, grow, harvest then replant. I'm on my 4th sowing of raab now and will make 4 to 6 more before the summer ends. Aside from adding some fertilizer & raking the area there isn't really that much work involved.

I'm going to guess, then, that you plant and replant in different parts of the garden in order to get several harvests in. Since my space is limited, and I have the entire garden filled with different crops, for me the old rabe has to go out before the new one can go in. Growth is slow, and that limits me to how many I can squeeze in in one season. What is your system?

I just started trying to grow cima di rapa (broccolli rabe) this year. First result looks good but the patch I used was kind of small. I am growing a 40 day variety which means it will be ready in aout 25 days. I figure this will give me plenty of ways of experimenting over this summer.

Cima di Rapa is italian for "turnip top." Hence there similariy in tast with turnip greens. They are much closer related to turnips than broccoli.

This is my first attempt at growing Broccoli Rabe. I bought 5 plants about 6 inches high in pots that already had yellow flowers. It is now May 20th in Philadelphia, Pa., and I've cut the flowers off twice already. Any suggestions, or am I wasting my time this summer?