Thanks Holly. Blaaagh I was really hoping it isn't a disease. I had a heavy powdery mildew outbreak last year, but that was more like late August. I'm still thinking it might be thripes-- I'll hit everything with the spinosad and some copper spray and see if there's any improvement.

As as if gardening wasn't difficult enough without all this nonsense popping up!!

I know what you mean. Some of the leaves on my zucchini plant seem a bit odd, sort of deformed, and I hope it isn't coming down with something, lol - the zucchinis that are forming look just fine so I have decided that it is just a matter of aesthetics; I can ignore the way the leaves look. Unfortunately, I think one of my tomato plants has more than a problem with aesthetics and has come down with a fungal or bacterial disease. Sigh. Oh, and I imagine powdery mildew will stop by later this season to give us all fits.

You may be right about the thrips. I looked at photos of thrip damage on the leaves of various vegetables and that could well be what is happening with yours. I hope someone with "thrips experience" will respond! (Somehow an insect problem seems so much easier to "fix" than an actual disease, though it probably isn't!)

Holly

I had a tomato virus outbreak last summer that is spread via thripes, so I know the little buggers are lurking :-) I don't usually go hard on bug populations because I don't mind tatty leaves (and I prefer to let the benificials handle cleanup and control), but all bets are off when diseases are concerned. There's nothing I hate more than pulling plants mid season-- my garden is too small to survive much of that!

Once the broccoli head is sufficient size and before it starts sending up flowers harvest it. If the plant is reasonably healthy it will produce smaller heads until frosts start occurring.

Also broccoli leaves are really just another word for kale or collards in my book, completely edible. So, if your heads do bolt, its not a total loss.

I would have said, flea beetle damage. They don't always punch "shot holes" completely through leaves.

Thrips and flea beetles are very, very mobile through their adult stages. The tiny pests scatter as a person comes close. Small but sometimes in virtual swarms ... Something else that they have in common, they are both beetles. Yeah, tiny, winged beetles. Spinosad is the organic insecticide choice, so I'd say you had the right idea for either, inbetweendays.

My broccoli now looks spent and about what I'd expect for mid-July. I may leave a plant or two, hoping for more nice side buds. The late planting of zucchini (maybe too late) has already gone in between the broccoli plants. Their space in the garden will be needed by those other plants soon.

Steve