Grow Your Own Food: Harvesting and Second Round of Growing
Not quite done yet...needs a week.
Finally all your hard work is starting to pay off. Your fruits on the vines are growing huge, your herb leaves look amazing and you’re starting to think of the recipes you can make with them. Yet, while you know exactly what to look for in your plants you’ve grown year after year, there are others where you have no idea if they are ripe or not. Maybe you can’t tell when the plant is dying or toward the end of its lifespan versus neglect or maybe it’s just dormant? Then you look at the calendar and you realize there is still a lot of time left until winter and you want to know what are good fall crops to replace your summer darlings with. These are just some of the topics we are tackling today in this edition of Grow Your Own Food so let’s get into it.
How do you know if they are done? They never seem to change color!
Is it done yet is probably the most often question you hear in baking, especially with small hungry children about. It is also an important question to consider when gardening. After all, maybe you’re growing a different variety of tomatoes that is green when ripe? In my case, pepper plants are my concern, but if you are not as lucky as me to still have those little seed packets out and about, the best place is to look online. Know what the name of the plant you are growing is and look up pictures of it. Also, beware of over ripe vegetables and fruits. Sure, they sound like a great idea, but if your tomato is starting to split or your cucumber is turning bright yellow on the blossom end, it is starting to go bad. In that cucumber’s case, it won’t last much longer probably. Research the signs of your fruit starting to give way. Yet what about underground plants, like carrots and parsnips and the like? That is a judgement call in the end. For our harvest dinner we ended up taking out a few carrots as a way to thin out the pot they were in and have a way to see how far they were progressing. Needless to say, the ones that remain in that pot are probably going to be a lot bigger by the time we do our next harvest because they have more room and more time to grow.
Our ancient lettuce plants...and some new arugula
Sometimes, it is really easy to tell if a plant is on its last legs due to old age. After all, they are not meant to last forever, especially ones that are annual so it is key to realize their lifespan. This can be easy with some plants like lettuce that have a very predictable pattern of bolting (growing straight up to make flowers and seeds) which often makes the leaves inedible as all the good nutrients go to the flowers. Arugula is similar in this respect, although from personal experience, the flowers are very delicious and add to a nice light arugula flavor when put into salads. Other plants, like mint, have regular dormant periods so they can survive cold winters and the like. Like a bear in hibernation, they will slow down for the winter and only pop back out of the ground in the spring. Again, this is another thing where it is best to learn how your plant works by looking it up, even if you’ve grown it before. Sometimes you can learn new tips and tricks of how to deal with it.
So many cute little carrots.
Lastly we’re going to delve into that fun topic of what to grow when your current seasonals have withered out. This is where plant knowledge is highly useful, as is having a variety of seeds. Everything has a season after all, and some plants like lettuce, arugula, carrots, parsnips, and various other vegetables love it when it is cooler out. Right now it’s early August so it is still hot, but in a month when these plants are older, it will be a crisp cool fall. This is a good time to grow plants with smaller grow seasons and plants that are hardy enough to potentially survive the winter. Use this time now to not only finish up what you have, but what you want to have come September, October, and maybe even November!
Future baby arugula in there.
So any other harvest tips or things you know about certain plants in terms of their last days of life? Let me know in the comments below. One funny thing we’ve noticed is that this year, our arugula has become self-planting. Arugula gets these little seed pods that we normally collect for the next years, and every once in a while, one will burst while we are trying to collect it and seeds will slip from our hands. This has led to some hilarity ensuing involving finding a dead old arugula plant and a bunch of little seeds around it. I’ve been making Jurassic Park “life finds a way” jokes everytime I see them. Anywho, hand over those tid bits and I will see you all next Horror Tuesday.
