Bambino Broccoli advise please! (first time autumn/winter grower)
Hey greenthumbs.
So I've found oodles and oodles of advice on growing broc. I haven't seen much on broccolini. Just want to check a few things from what I've read, and pick your collective brains. A TL;DR with my real q's will be at the bottom.
Pic 1 (background):
These are the 2 most mature plants I have, lefty and righty. Please ignore the mountain of grass to the left of the bed. I'm calling these mature because.... look at them?
Pic 2 (question 1):
A head forming on righty. Very exciting. I've read in general when the top is about 10c-coin size you snip it? Is this true? To encourage branching? Something about making sure you get the topmost leaves in the cut as well? Please advise on how to proceed.
Pic 3 (question 2+):
So as I've read you snip the main head to encourage branching, however, lefty already has this rather impressive looking side shoot that's ~1/3 as high as the main stem. Do I clip this off? Do I still clip his head when he's 10c-ish (or some other arbitrary milestone)? Do these in general need staking too? I noticed it's thinner closer to the main stem, and thicker on the vertical portion, so it'll need support. I assume this will turn into a head?
TL;DR:
Do I clip the top shoot of these plants to encourage branching? At what point/size do I do it? Do I take any leaves with it?
What if the plants are already branching without much of a head already?
Are sideshoots meant to be staked?
Also completely separate, if someone has a low nitrogen fertilizer go-to for carrots I'd love a recco. Got some maturing nicely but I'm afraid to feed them and end up with hairy thin carrots.
Thank you for sticking with me!