Pick Today? Pick Tomorrow? Pick Next Week?

Posted on Saturday, July 29, 2023 · Leave a Comment 

Those of us who grow vegetables are faced with many questions each year: will there be a late frost that will harm our tomatoes and peppers if we plant them on Memorial Day weekend? Is it time to harvest garlic now, since they produced their scapes early this year? When should we harvest broccoli– now, with heads still fairly small – or wait till they get bigger? Will the sun finally prevail and give all our veggies a big boost after all this rain?

 

The vegetable garden is soggy at best

We have seen more rain than usual – much more. Even a quick shower results in standing water in the walkways between my mounded raised beds. But in addition to the excess water, plants aren’t getting their usual allotment of sunshine. They need sun – strong, bright sun – to grow and produce fruits and leaves. The lack of sunshine is what is causing smaller veggies, yellowed leaves, and later ripening.

 

Is it time to harvest garlic yet? After the plants send up those curly stems we call “scapes”, it is generally fine to harvest garlic. Traditionally I pull mine in mid- to late-August. But it’s important to pull them at the right time, not sooner or later than needed.

 

This garlic is smaller than I would expect, but the skin is strong and the others can continue to grow

Here’s what I do: I start by groping my garlic: I slip my  hand into the soil and feel how big the bulbs are. I don’t pull them if they’re tiny. But to be on the safe side, I pull a few and look at the skin over the cloves. I want the skins to be strong and tight for good storage. If they are breaking down (due to all the rain), I pull my garlic. If not, I let them keep growing, but check them often.

 

What about potatoes? My advice is to wait. Yes, you will have some small potatoes as soon as they have blossomed. But I wait much longer than that to harvest mine, as I want big spuds. When leaves start to yellow and die back, then I dig them all. In the meantime, I slip my hand into the soil (without disturbing the plants) and grab a few “new” potatoes for a special treat.

 

Even though a healthy broccoli plant will produce more food from its side shoots than the main head, some of my plants are small and yellowed from lack of sun. I am pulling the feeble ones and planting a late crop of lettuce by seed in the space.

 

Brussel sprouts plants should be much bigger by now

My Brussels sprouts plants are also much smaller than normal this year. Fortunately, they will continue to grow until the end of October, or even later. If we get sunshine soon, they should recover. My normal advice is to cut the tops of the plants off on Labor Day weekend so that the plants don’t keep growing taller but instead send their energy into producing big “sprouts”. This year I’ll be lucky if they have stalks at all. So I will wait and see – and I accept that my harvest might be small or non-existent.

 

Carrots love the rain, and are growing nicely. We thinned them in early July and are keeping them well weeded. Still, little sunshine means they can’t bulk up as they would in a normal year.

 

Onions are ready to harvest when their tops flop over. Pull the onions, even if small, and allow them to dry for a week or so in a shady, breezy spot.

 

One bright spot in the garden this year is celery. I don’t usually grow it, as in the past mine has been tough to chew and a magnet for snails and slugs. This year I planted six plants, and although the stalks are not yet thick, the plants are big and so far have not seemed to attract pests. I ate a stalk, and it is tougher than store-bought. But tasty.

 

I usually grow celeriac instead of celery, and I did start some from seed indoors. Celeriac is also called celery root, and has a big bulb that grows above the soil surface. It keeps in the refrigerator for up to 6 months, and when added in a soup or stew, has the same celery flavor. This year –with little sun? The bulbs are not showing yet.

 

All this rain inspired me to grow watercress! I got seeds, and the packet says plant in wet soil, preferably in a shady area. I have that. I only did that recently, but the plants have sprouted and seem happy.

 

The Cornish Fair is always on the third weekend of August and has competitions for everything: who can throw an ax most accurately, who can produce the best strawberry jam – and much more. For me it is a time to compete in the vegetable and flower categories in the gym of the school. Tomatoes generally are ripe by then, but this year -who knows?

 

Even though I have been picking off the many yellowed leaves on my tomato plants, they are still far behind their usual selves. Do pick off the yellow leaves – they will only spread fungal disease. But only do so when the leaves are dry – if they ever are!

 

I heard that a study at Harvard found that people who eat a cup of ice cream every day live longer than those that do not. I couldn’t find this study on-line, but have my own theory: People who are happy live longer. If eating ice cream makes you happy, have some! Me? I think the study should have been focused on home-grown tomatoes and potatoes and garlic fresh from the garden. I know they keep me happy – and probably living longer than most!  

 

Henry is an organic gardener, and an optimist. He believes the summer will turn sunny with moderate rain. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net if  you want to dispute that.

Filed under Article · Tagged with growing in soggy soil, when to harvest vegetables

A Time to Harvest

Sometimes it’s tough to know just when to pick things in the vegetable garden. We don’t want to pick produce before it’s ready, but neither do we want to pick them after our fruits have passed their prime. And to confuse matters even more, each variety of vegetable has its own moment of perfection.

I remember the first time I grew ‘Green Zebra’ tomatoes and waited for them to get ripe. They didn’t appear to. Then a few fell off the vine – they were overripe. The only way I could tell they were ripe was by the feel. When they started to get soft, they were ripe. But mostly I pick tomatoes by their color.

Green beans are best before they show the lumps that are the individual seeds. Young beans are delicious, but of course, you don’t want to pick them when they are too young, as you’ll get less production that way. Some beans, especially pole beans like ‘Kwintus’ (from Cook’s Garden Seeds) are still very tasty when you can see individual beans in the pods. Part of knowing when to pick is letting a few things get older than they should, and then remembering what they look like.

By now your onions have been harvested, I suppose. They are easy to identify as ready to harvest: the tops fall over and turn brown. If yours are still in the ground, go get them! Although you can pull the onions and let them dry/cure in the garden, I think it is better to dry them on a porch or deck out of the rain.

Beets taste the same, or almost, whether picked early or late. I eat the thinnings early in the season, I eat some mid-season, I harvest some after frost. Frost does not harm them – if anything, it even makes them a little sweeter. Carrots are much the same. I don’t find that my big, late carrots get woody – but if the variety that you grow does get woody, pick them earlier.

Potatoes keep on getting bigger until the leaves brown up and flop over. I generally pull potatoes before then, but last year my granddaughter, Casey, grew potatoes and did not get to harvest them until the tops had pretty much disappeared. The potatoes were still perfect – though as a general rule I wouldn’t let potatoes stay in the ground that late, fearing that they might rot in a rainy spell. Frost does not harm them.

Sweet peppers will turn red, but if you let them stay on the vine to get red, you lose production. If you pick them green, the plants keep on flowering and producing more peppers. Hot peppers get hotter if you let them stay on the vine until they are fully ripe.

Lettuce can be harvested either as a cut-and-come-again crop, or harvested as heads. If lettuce plants start getting tall, they’re getting ready to bolt and flower. So I try to pick them before they do so – a bolting lettuce gets bitter.

Broccoli

When broccoli heads start to show yellow, they are about to go by. The flowers are yellow, and you want to pick the heads or side shoots before the flowers appear as flowers. But if they do flower, they’re still edible. And cut anything off that has flowered, so it will stimulate the plant to make more side shoots.

Kale can be harvested any time; I like to keep it growing well into the fall. Frost is not a problem, nor is snow. I keep picking kale until the temperatures go down into the teens. The oldest leaves, down at the bottom of the plant, can get a little tough with time. Be sure to remove the central rib before you cook or freeze the leaves.

Summer squash can be picked very small – or quite large. Patty pan squash, one of my favorites, is perfect at the 4-inch diameter size, though I know someone who picks it at the 2-inch size – almost bite sized. Zucchini grows so fast that I often find some – the escapees- that are 18 inches long. Those I quarter lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Then I run them through the shredder (top) blade of my food processor, making a nice mixture that I freeze as is. I use it as a base for making winter soups.

Blue hubbard

Speaking of winter, winter squash are a bit tricky to pick at just the right moment. What I have decided is that it really doesn’t matter when you pick them. When my blue hubbards or Waltham butternuts stop growing, or when I see that the stem is drying up, I pick them. Winter squash need to be cured for some weeks before eating for the best flavor.

Apples? If you have to yank on an apple to get it off the tree, it’s not ready to pick. If lots of apples are on the ground, the tree is probably ready to pick. Pears are usually picked green, and ripened on a window sill or in trays in the barn. Plums, like apples, come off in my hand at a gentle touch when they are fully ripe, but I can also tell by the color.

Like much in life, practice – and paying attention – makes perfect when it comes to harvesting. That, and having enough time to go out and get in the garden when you need to. Happy harvesting!

Copyright © 2014 Henry Homeyer

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