You daydreamed about home-grown veggies last winter, carefully planted them in spring and have lovingly tended them all summer.
Now it’s finally harvest time — but you still need to keep your focus.
Reap your bounty the right way, and your plants will keep producing delicious veggies.
Harvest your treasures incorrectly, however, and you could decrease quality, invite pests or disease, or even prematurely end a plant’s productive period.
“Seasoned gardeners may assume that everyone knows how to harvest,” according to the Home Garden Seed Association. “Not true!
“Knowing how and when to pick your produce will keep your plants productive and your kitchen well-stocked,” adds the association, which is based in California and describes itself as “a member-driven organization made up of garden-seed packet companies, seed growers, and packet printers.”
Although each type of veggie has its own dos and don’ts, a few overall guidelines apply:
• “When harvesting vegetables, be careful not to break, nick or bruise them,” urges the University of Minnesota Extension. “The less you handle your vegetables, the longer they will last in storage.”
• Harvest when leaves are dry. If you handle and manipulate plants while leaves are wet, you risk spreading disease.
• Be careful around stems, especially those that sprawl on the ground. If you accidentally crush or step on them, the wound could provide an opening for diseases or insect pests.
• To avoid damaging plants or encouraging disease, keep tools clean and sharp.
Now, before you grab your bowl or basket and head to the garden, here are specific tips for some popular home-grown treats:
• Carrots: Have you ever pulled, wiggled and pulled just a little bit more on the top of a carrot — only to have the leaves break off and the orange root remain stuck in the ground?
It’s a pretty demoralizing experience, especially if the neighbors are watching.
The keys are to do a little gentle digging first and to harvest after rain, when the soil is more willing to lessen its grip.
• Cucumbers: “Twisting cucumbers from the vine can damage the plant,” warns the seed association. (OK, in a cuke-induced frenzy, I’ve been known to twist, yank or whatever it takes to get those juicy morsels off the plant. Never again!)
Instead, use shears or pruners to make a clean cut.
• Lettuce: “For loose-leaf varieties, cut the outer leaves one by one when they’re large enough to use and allow the inner leaves to develop,” suggests the Michigan State University Extension.
“Another method for baby lettuce is to cut all of the leaves a few inches above the soil, making sure not to cut the growing point.”
• Peppers: “When the fruits are mature, they break easily from the plant,” says the University of Illinois Extension. “Less damage is done to the plants, however, if the fruits are cut rather than pulled off.”
• Tomatoes: Ask 10 tomato growers how to harvest, and you’ll get 10 different answers.
But the seed association’s advice is easy to remember and to execute:
“Harvest tomatoes by twisting them gently until they separate from the stem.”
Diana Lockwood, a freelance writer covering gardening topics, posts on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mrsgardenperson.