Harvesting How-To

Harvesting is one of the most satisfying parts of gardening and if done correctly will help yield a seemingly unending supply of produce.  Generally, it's best to harvest only ripe produce, allowing the newer veggies to grow to their full potential over the next few days.  In the Garden we harvest  ripe stuff together as a group every Tuesday and Saturday, and then encourage people to harvest individual portions of greens (chard, kale, arugula, mustard etc) and herbs on their own. Below are a few tips to harvesting in the Community Garden, with some photos of ripe produce.

Carrots: Pull carrots very carefully to avoid pulling of the tops. You may want to gently loosen the soil around the carrots with a garden fork then wiggle and pull them out. A carrot is ready when you can see a little bit of it above the soil, or when the soil is brushed away you can seen the top orange part.

Basil: Basil shoudl be harvest regularly every week. Simply snip off the flowering heads, just below the two big leaves as shown above.

Beans: So far we only have fresh eating green and purple string beans. These should be harvested regularly 2x per week. The beans are ripe when they are firm, a few inches long, and BEFORE they turn woody. Once a bean has bumps (where the seeds are developing) the bean is likely a little too ripe. These can still be eaten, but aren't choice. When harvesting beans, pick the older woody ones as well and throw them in the compost. If the plant isn't cleaned of beans, it will start putting it's growing power into developing seeds in the old beans instead of producing new yummy green beans.

Beets: We have traditional purple, yellow and white nad pink striped Chioga beets. They are all ready around the same time. Generally you can see the top of the beet and they should be 1-2" in diameter before pulling them. If, as illustrated above, there are a group of beets growing together, pull the one in the middle, aka thinning, to allow the others to mature.

Chard (& Other Greens): Feel free to harvest 1-2 leaves per plant. These should be fairly decent size when harvesting- at least 8-12" long. If the plant just has small leaves, then move onto the next. Arugla, spinach, lettuce and mustard should be harvested when they are smaller 2-5" long.

Cucumbers: Harvest these when they are starting to look smooth, but still have slightly visible ridges. They should also still have a few prickles on the skin. Though the leaves may not look prolific, we have a LOT of cucumbers this year so make sure to look through the leaves thoroughly.

Lemon Cucumbers: Harvest these when they are starting to look smooth, but still have slightly visible ridges. They should also still have a few prickles on the skin. Lemon cucumbers may turn a bit yellow prior to harvesting- this is OK and they are still delicious!

Eggplant: These round eggplant should be harvest at once they reach 5"  across, and NOT earlier. If they look close, allow them to mature and grow until next week. Cut the stem off with scissors or a knife about 1/2" away from the plant.

Eggplant: These long Thai eggplant should be harvested once they reach 8-12"  long, and NOT earlier. Cut the stem off with scissors or a knife about 1/2" away from the plant.

Kale: This dinosaur looking kale should be harvest when the leaves are over 12" long. Snip off 1-2 of the outer most leaves per plant when harvesting.

Kale: This curly kale should be harvest when the leaves are over 10" long. Snip off 1-2 of the outer most leaves per plant when harvesting.

Peppers: Peppers come in many shapes and sizes! Read the following notes carefully and be aware of which type you are harvesting. All peppers should be snipped at the stem. Note that peppers can take a couple of weeks to grow, so harvesting them early is NOT advised. Green chilies- harvest when over 8". Green and Purple Bell peppers- harvest when the peppers are at least 3-4 inches long and are shiny, if still dull chances are they are not ripe. Poblanos- harvest when 3-4" long and they start looking plump, if they still look concave or skinny leave them until next week. Jalapenos' harvest when plump, 2-3" long, and shiny. Hot peppers- harvest when you need some serious spice, many will turn red when totally ride and ready.

Pepper: turn red after being on the plant for awhile, these are still wonderful to eat and cook with.

Tomatoes: We have many kinds of tomatoes in the garden, and some ripen when bright red, others purple, some yellow or orange, some even green. The best way to tell if a tomato is ripe, gently press on it and it should be just the slightest bit soft. At this point they should come off of the vine fairly easily. Make sure to lift up vines and search around for tomatoes as they are often hidden. If you find any rotten ones, please pull them off of the vine

Tomatillos: harvest these when the papery shell starts to split and make way for the green or purple fruit inside. When ripe these fruit are very easy to pick by hand as they will fall off easily. Lift up the vines when picking tomatillos and look for fruit that may have fallen naturally.

Mid-season catch up

Happy Tuesday gardeners!

We hope you are all enjoying summer! As promised this year, we are not sending out many emails, but rather keeping everyone updated on our FB page and blog (here!). However, we wanted to get everyone up to speed and make sure you all are aware of what is going on; so here is the news:

Growing:

The garden is finally taking off after a rather slow spring. There were a few glitches in the watering system- but they are all fixed now thanks especially to Trish and Matt. Please be careful when walking around the irrigation system as some connections are fragile. If you see a break please let us know ASAP. We have had more pests than usual this year, so we will be spreading diatomaceous earth around seedlings, squash and cucumbers. We will also be fertilizing the garden with an organic fish fertilizer this week which should give it all a nice big boost. We'll repeat this again in the first week of august. Remember we have garden sessions every Tuesday from 5-7pm, Saturday mornings and you can also stop by whenever it works for you.

Compost:

Yes! We have a brand new compost barrel. Please bring your kitchen scraps (just NO meat/eggs/dairy) and a moderate amount of seed-free lawn clippings to the black bin every week. Just open, dump in your scraps, and close. The sooner we get it filled the sooner we can get it composting. It will need about 100 days to compost and then we can start the cycle over again. This will be great for the garden next year and it keeps your food waste out of the landfill.

Weeding:

There are tons of weeds- like always and we encourage everyone to do their part. If all 40 members pulled a few weeds every week our garden would be spotless :). Right now we want to pay special attention to getting out all of the GOATHEADS. There is a huge patch of them near the alley way, and there are babies all over the garden. These hurt feet and paws and will puncture bike tires. Please pull every-single-one and put them in the trash. After that pull weeds wherever, remembering that the herb beds in back need weeding as do the front flower beds near the road.

Harvest:
The strawberries were a delicious first bite of spring! The lettuce and small greens are done for the season and we are moving on to lots of green beans, tops of the basil plants and greens like chard. The garlic may be ready as early as next week! And in a couple of weeks we will start having lots of tomatillos, peppers and tomatoes too! If you see little blue borage flowers at the beginning of the rows- feel free to pick a few and put them on your salads- they taste like cucumber. And remember you are always welcome to harvest herbs as needed.

Potluck:

Our first potluck of the season will be Tuesday, July 22nd after the garden session. We'll provide lemonade and water and a big table- so please bring a dish to share, a chair and your own cup/plate/utensils. Feel free to bring a friend or family member as well!

As always, we welcome your feedback and encourage you all to get more involved if you want to say, lead composting, organize social events, plant a special variety of something or become a garden leader!

See you soon,

The Garden Committee

Work session tonight. Jess is your garden leader and will be directing the following:
Weeding: Everywhere! There are giant weeds in the pathways that need to go. The dead weeds can be left in the pathways, but GOATHEADS should be thrown in trash. There are lots of goatheads popping up and we need to pay special attention to getting them all out!

Re-seeding: We will be reseeding the areas where we harvested the radishes and spinach as well as the “annual herb” area where nothing is growing (middle of bed) and the chamomile bed and we can take out the peas as well. The irrigation lines should be pulled back, and then the weeds pulled and the soil re-worked with a pitchfork. After leveling the beds back out, replace the hoses. The front bed near road should be planted in summer squash, three seeds per area a couple of feet apart. The other areas should be seeded with kale, broccoli and pok choi cabbage …and mustard greens if we have room.. Those should be seeded in two parallel lines about 8-12" apart, one on either side of the  irrigation lines. Please seed these regularly, one seed every ½ inch or so. These do NOT need to be clustered along the holes in the irrigation line. After seeding, cover the seeds, water well with watering cans, and at the end sprinkle all seeded areas with a heavy dusting of diatomaceous earth across the newly seeded beds. We have a lot more bugs than usual this year and this should help with some of them. Label all rows when done!!

Harvest: there are beans to be had, please make sure all of the ripe ones are harvested so they will keep producing. Also people can harvest cilantro and herbs as needed. Please pinch all flowering ends of the basil. And greens (arugula and chard) can be harvested as people want. Encourage people to come harvest lettuce in the early mornings as it is less bitter then.

Fertilizer: I will be buying some fish fertilizer to spray the garden. This should be done at the very end, as it kind of smells! But parts of the garden could use a little boost!

Compost time!

Gardeners, please feel free to put your home compost materials like kitchen scraps and small amounts of leaves (NO dairy, meat or woody materials) into our new black compost bin. Once we have filled it we will let you all know. At that point we'll simply allow it to "compost" for about 3 months and then we'll start the process over again. Happy composting!

Weeds, Garlic Scapes & Strawberries tonight!

This evening is our Tuesday work session. Alison will be the leader! We have the following work to do:

1.) There are lots and lots of  new WEEDS to be PULLED(before they turn into giant weeds with deep roots!). Look through the pictures posted on May 30th to ID the weeds.  From now on we can LEAVE weeds in the pathways to keep nutrients in the soil.

2.) Tonight we will also be harvesting the GARLIC SCAPES- these are the curly flower type stalks coming out of the top of the garlic plants.  These stalks should be trimmed as far down as possible without trimming any leaves.

3.) Harvest all of the RED-RIPE STRAWBERRIES! We need to thoroughly harvest these every Tuesday and Saturday to keep the plants producing.

Work Session and First Strawberry!

Happy Tuesday! Alison is the garden leader today. At the work session tonight we will be pulling weeds (if you aren't sure if something is a weed or a seedling we planted, ask someone who knows and if you still can't identify it, leave it for next week), weeding the front flower bed next to the road (mainly taking out the grasses WITH their root system), and picking the first 4 ripe strawberries. Don't worry, everyone can enjoy a few this season- there are lots of green ones. To really enjoy a strawberry make sure it is completely red!

Building beds tonight!

We are back to our regularly scheduled work sessions tonight. From 5-7pm tonight we'll be building beds, connecting drip tape and possibly direct seeding some greens and potatoes!