Contents
A lot of newbie gardeners or farmers are confused about When to harvest vegetables after planting seeds and growing their vegetable plants in their farm or backyard garden. You Must Watch some important Signs and indications before Harvesting Root crops and veggies for container vegetable gardening. In today’s episode we will look into some important vegetable gardening tips and indications on Harvesting your root vegetables, like How to tell when, these are ready to be harvested.
Introduction
Root crops or root vegetables are underground plant parts that are harvested and eaten by humans as food. These can be roots, bulbs, rhizomes, or tubers. We will not go into the botanical details of these terms for now.
Commonly Grown Root Vegetables
The commonly grown root vegetables include carrots, radish, beets, onions, potatoes, and many more. It’s a big list and a big classification.
Importance of Harvest Timing
The first tip actually is a reason why this harvest timing is so important. Do not let them grow too large because they can become tough and woody to taste and may not be chewable. You know what I mean by this. Yes, the size is very important.
Harvesting Beets and Turnips
Beets and turnips should be pulled out as soon as they grow to the size of a golf ball, but never allow them to grow to the size above a tennis ball. Tender roots are actually the best to taste. Now you may ask a question, all these are lying underground and how would I know the size of these veggies. You will get answers to these questions in the coming tips.
Signs and Tips for Harvesting
Carrots, Beets, and Radish or Turnips
First of all, you must know that their green leaves are edible and really tasty. If it’s too early, you can just snip off some leaves if you want to have them. As long as you leave some greens on the plant, it will continue to grow more of them.
When it comes to roots, that’s the main veggie! Remember: the smaller the root, the better it tastes! So when to pull it out? Pull the largest roots every time you harvest. If you become greedy and leave them under for a long time they get woody and bitter to taste.
Identifying Ready Roots
So which is the biggest one or how to know if it’s ready to be pulled out? Just look at the green leaves, and remember this general rule: the bigger the root under the soil, the darker the green leaves and thicker the stem. So, if some of the greens in the row look darker than the others, you can be sure the largest root veggies are underneath.
Checking Size
Another tip here: Beets, carrots, and radish grow partly above the soil, especially when they mature. But sometimes you can remove some of the topsoil and check the thickness or the size of the crown – that’s the top portion, before pulling them out.
Seed Packet Dates
The dates on the seed packets will also give you a rough idea about when you should expect them to be fully ripe. Generally, it’s about 40 to 60 or more days, but you can apply some of these tips shown in this episode and decide by combining all the knowledge you gain.
Thinning for Congestion
If you planted seeds too close and you see there is congestion, especially in container gardening – you can pull out some baby roots like carrots or radish because these are really soft and delicious to eat. This will also relieve the congestion and allow the remaining crops to grow to their proper size.
Onions and Garlic
Onions can be left for storage or harvested when the leaves turn yellow or the necks at the base bend. You should stop watering them and then harvest or store them. If you wish to consume the onion leaves or spring onions, they are really delicious. You can snip off and prepare your favorite dish.
Potatoes
Potatoes generally take a longer time, like about 10 to 12 weeks after planting, and the first indication is when the plant starts flowering. This is the time they generally attain their proper size. Snip off the flowers to divert the plant energy to get bigger-sized potatoes. The final indication of harvesting is when the plant starts to become yellow and eventually dries off. You can check my detailed post on some useful hacks and tricks to grow lots of potatoes in containers.
Please Watch a detailed video on these vegetable harvesting tips below:
