Resilience: Best Garden Harvest Practices

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Lovie and I just got in from picking beans and tomatoes in our backyard garden. We're pickling the beans and the tomatoes are going to their usual fates: grape tomatoes into our mouths by the handful and in salads, the medium-size tomatoes to salsas and the food dryer. I trust your gardening has been a tasty success so far. We had fun back in the spring with gardening topics. This time I'd like to talk about harvesting. Next week more on post-harvesting and so on. More below:

First off, a confession about harvesting. I'm usually somewhat organized for seeds and planting and raising vegies. Come harvesting, I've run out of discipline and its a disorganized chaotic mess. Oh well :=) I titled this post rather grandiosely as "best harvest practices," not because I have any, but in the hope that you do!

Our garden is almost done with the summer vegies and berries and we're now watching the squashes, the grapes, the broccoli, cauliflowers, and so on. The main reason we're not organized for harvest is because it's just a family garden, there's nothing really large enough to fret about. By guess or by golly and it mostly gets in safely. Some of you folks have bigger gardens and more discipline and knowledge. I hope that you would comment and tell us a bit about how you harvest fruits and vegies.

Advice, resources, tools, and tips are most welcome!

Over the years, I have found very useful as a reference a free online book by the University of California.
UCDavis PostHarvest Centre.jpg
Small-Scale Postharvest Handling Practices: A Manual for Horticultural Crops (4th Edition)
http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-1450.pdf
It's meant for small farms, but it's packed with handy charts and tables on various harvesting and preserving information.

Here's an example. It's a table of maturity indices.
Maturity indices.jpg
Source: Bautista, O.K. and Mabesa, R.C. (eds). 1977. Vegetable Production. University of the Philippines at Los Banos.
(Additional detailed maturity indices for fruits, vegetables and cut flowers can be found online at http://postharvest.ucdavis.edu on a wide range of Produce Fact Sheets.)

Oh yes, I'm always on about vegies, so here's a bit of homage to all the flower growers Smile

I invite you to comment on how your garden is doing, what the season's been like, your harvesting advice and tricks of the trade, and anything else.

PS, someone earlier this week wanted to know about growing sesame. Does anyone grow sesame? Could someone give us a bit of advice?

Peace be with us (full pantries, full tummies, and a bit to share :=)
gerrit

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Pricknick's picture

As it's been a great year for tomatoes, we decided to make as much juice as we had canning jars left after the run of stewed and salsa.
This is the first time we've used the whole tomato. Skin, seeds and pulp all. After coring out the stems and removing bruises and bad spots, everything went into the ninja blender. We added onions, celery, carrots and spinach. After simmering for one hour, we let it cool down and again ran it through the blender. Another thirty minutes of simmering and straight to the canning process. No straining required.
The juice is thick and wonderfully flavored. With a little flour and heating it also makes wonderful soup. We're never removing the skins and seeds again.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Gerrit's picture

tomatoes in the north-east. That does sound tasty indeed. And during the fall and winter, when you reach into the pantry, there it will be, filled with summer goodness. It's part of the good life, eh.

And every fall, it's the same, but a bit different. Like you folks, deciding to use all of the tomato. There's always something interesting from the garden every fall. I was so late with everything this year. Thankfully, I had bought short-season seed packets from Quebec next door and they're finishing around the same time as previous years. I'm going with those again next year.

Tasty eating, my friend :=)

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Raggedy Ann's picture

RAndy and I only grew garlic this year. We are trying to get to where we grow about 1/4 acre. We started with 100 plants, which turned into 200 plants and we harvested 400+ this year. We'll be planting around 1500 next year, so it will start to become a cash crop. Once we plant around 7500, in 2017, we'll be able to start selling it. We need a greenhouse, so that will come in the next year or two. We enjoyed other's to natives, squash, corn, etc., thus year. Hope to gave our own to harvest and can in the coming years. Thanks for thus. It will help us as we move through the processes.

Enjoy your weekend! Pleasantry

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Gerrit's picture

ours grew their garlic crop in the the same manner. It served them well for a long time. Now they run a vegie CSA, which keeps them young and fit :=)

That UC site is stuffed with good stuff for commercial growers.
Best wishes to Cuz Andy,

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michelewln's picture

Amazing I looked up restaurant Sweet and Sour Pork as opposed to my version. 1643.31 calories versus my 389.

Here is the difference: restaurant style
Calories 1643.31
Total Fat 95.369 g
Saturated Fat 16.321 g
Trans Fat 0.53 g
Monounsaturated Fat 21.479 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 43.336 g
Cholesterol 146.16 mg
Sodium 1851.36 mg
Total Carbohydrate 142.141 g
Dietary Fiber 6.09 g

Mine: Per Serving: 389 Calories; 16g Fat (37.6% calories from fat); 29g Protein; 32g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 68mg Cholesterol; 380mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain (Starch); 4 Lean Meat; 1 1/2 Vegetable; 1/2 Fruit; 2 Fat; 1 Other Carbohydrates.

So if you want good and healthy Sweet and Sour Pork here is my recipe.
Sweet and Sour Pork

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Bollox Ref's picture

I've been spending time putting them away for winter recipes.

Tomatoes still dong nicely, along with some Basil.

Oh, yes the Serrano peppers have been a success.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Gerrit's picture

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earthling1's picture

Still have many tomatoes ripening, green beans are over-running the top of greenhouse.
For years now have been trying to duplicate " Terra Preta " of Amazonion origin using biochar and non cultivating techniques.
One suggestion I would have is to leave as much root in the ground when the season is over. Beneficial organisms attatch to the root systems and can survive there until you plant again. They then migrate to new roots.
Pulling the old plants root and all damages the soil biome.
I'm in the PNW.

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WaterLily's picture

about rotating plantings around a four-square grid to maximize soil nutrients / avoid things like blight.

When you say "migrate to new roots," do you mean "new roots" of the same vegetables? Or do the organisms attach to any root?

So much to learn!

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earthling1's picture

Like bees to new flowers. Called Mycorrhizae, they are a symbiotic white fungal fuzz that act as a bridge between the plants, inorganic materials and the entire microbial community. Thr surface area of these mycorrhizae can be greater than the surface area of the leaves of the plant itself.
Pull the rootball itself, but leave the deeper biosphere alone.

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Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
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Gerrit's picture

not heard of leaving the roots in. Sigh, and I just pulled out our finished sunflowers into a giant heap. I'm saving the heads and shredding the stalks. Excuse my ignorance, if you leave in the roots, do you get any volunteers the next season? I'll give it a try with the remaining vegies and see how it works. Thanks.

Green beans overrunning the top of the greenhouse! That must be a beautiful sight :=)

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earthling1's picture

The roots of any subsequent volunteers will continue to support the symbiotic relationship of the entire biome.
Just as a whole world of life exists below the ocean, there too below ground.
And that world needs balance also.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
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Gerrit's picture

that aboard.

Scarlet runner beans are my spouse's favourites :=) Ah, yes, hummingbirds. I call all the birds, bugs, and bees my garden's Air Force!

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earthling1's picture

are the flowering "Scarlet" variety which bring many, many, bees and hummingbirds. The hummingbirds follow me when I harvest as I spread the vines apart, giving them more access to the flowers. Little gardening friends.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

katchen's picture

thanks! It will change my gardening practices from here on out and I'll always
think of "earthling" when I leave the roots in.

Happy harvest!

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WaterLily's picture

And am so happy to have stumbled upon this! (I may have seen it soon after my migration here, but didn't follow it as much as I should have. That said, I'm looking forward to using this column as a resource!).

I'm in Vermont, also very close to Quebec. Threw my first (hopefully mostly) organic garden in pretty late, and have had some successes and some casualties. Haven't mastered the practice of "succession planting" and, after a stupid-strong start, all of my gourds -- zucchinis, cucumbers, butternut squash, red kuris -- died off. Powdery mold? Too hot/humid? I'm not sure, but I'm thankful for the learning experience and looking forward to expanding the garden next year!

Also, my favorite preservation technique for cucumbers is the "refrigerator pickle." I'm a bit frightened by traditional canning (will I poison everyone?!), so this is an easy way to not waste the yield.

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mhagle's picture

Also easy to do are the fermented pickles (that you also store in the refrigerator). This is how you make sauerkraut and can pickle any vegetable.

[video:https://youtu.be/Ipxy-GuSIhU]

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Gerrit's picture

We cover a variety of topics (mostly in an unorganized what strikes the fancy kind of way :=) In gardening, as with anything else, you're very welcome to propose topics of interest and we'll make it into a post and learn from each other.

I'm in eastern Ontario, in a similar climate to you in VT. I'm sorry to hear about your plants. Do you have a photo of the damage? Maybe we could identify the problem?

I've been fortunate: the cucumbers did fine and the squashes are fattening. To prevent rotting problems, I use drip hoses underneath mulch to minimize water damage and I'm in there every day to make sure everything is either off the ground or resting on dry mulch. I've been fortunate with pests and diseases with those plants, but I'm detectiving after what's feasting on the lower leaves of my cauliflowers!

Ah yes, succession planting. I regularly lose the track on that :=)

Best wishes,
g

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WaterLily's picture

I'll try to grab a photo after the rain. Mostly, the leaves and vines all just withered ... kind of simultaneously. Weird. But I'm still having fun! Smile

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Gerrit's picture

just become mulch to help next year's vegies grow better. It's all good. And it helps me get outside. I'm retired and our dog gets us out for walks, the vegies gets us out for exercise!

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mhagle's picture

the best garden I have ever had in Texas.

When I first wrote this comment, I didn't take enough time to do it right. So I am doing it over.

Gerrit . . . I completely relate to

First off, a confession about harvesting. I'm usually somewhat organized for seeds and planting and raising veggies. Come harvesting, I've run out of discipline and its a disorganized chaotic mess. Oh well :=)

This is the first year, after trying for 22 years, that I have had a decent harvest in Texas and have actually preserved the harvest so that I am using it in cooking later. That means 21 years of mostly failures. Little successes here and there. But mostly failure. Last year my husband teased me, saying I had a "black thumb." Regarding my corn growing efforts.

Largely, I have been beating myself up over it, because I grew up on an organic dairy farm in northern Iowa where we grew, raised, preserved all of our food. My dad did dairy to earn a living, but his passion was gardening. My mom was a college educated woman, but married my dad and embraced farming. She was a fabulous fabulous cook and baker. A very high standard to live up to.

Living in Texas, driving around the countryside and looking at many beautiful gardens, eventually I began to question . . . "so they plant and it grows and looks good . . . but does anyone actually harvest anything?" Some do, but many don't. Our growing season is so short. Once it hits 100 degrees, everything is done. Except okra. Okra wants water, but doesn't give a shit about heat. So we live on okra???? In 2014 it was 34 degrees on May 1 and 100 degrees on June 1 (approximately). Nothing grows and is ready for harvest in one month.

But this year we had a mild winter and I had the where-with-all to plant out tomato and pepper plants on March 1. Also, I planted green bean and swiss chard seeds. My potatoes and onions were planted in February. It froze twice after I planted, so I covered everything with my super duper insulated covering cloth.

Also . . . I started carrot, parsnip, radishes, beets and garlic in the fall. They popped up in the fall, then I covered them during the winter and took the covers off by March. I have never ever ever successfully grown carrots before.

My original post is the wonderful result . . .

I froze 40 quarts of tomatoes. Froze 10 quarts of plum jam. Froze 10 quarts of various varieties of peppers and have also made many quarts of lacto-fermented pickled peppers. Froze carrots.

My neighbor asked me to come and pick plums at a friends house. Holy schmoly beautiful plums. Made those 10 quarts of freezer jam. The same fabulous neighbor just brought me a gob of figs. We will make freezer jam of those as well.

I also had a good crop of potatoes and onions that we have been eating. And my herbs are doing well.

I know how to do canning, but freezing is so much easier. Canning is more resilient, because you don't need electricity. At this time in my life experience, freezing is simply the best I can to.

So I am going to keep trying. It is so wonderful to walk out to my garden and pick some veggies to bring in the house for cooking. At this moment I have 130 seeds sprouting on my dining room table for hopefully the next round.

In Texas we have 3 big problems.

  1. The growing seasons are too short.
  2. The soil is terrible
  3. Bugs, like grasshoppers, that can easily wipe out everything.

I grow everything in "lasagna garden" "keyhole garden" type beds. That means I create my own soil by layering cardboard, paper, leaves, grass clippings, manure, etc . . . put already created soil on the top . . . add worms . . . and plant.

Ultimately, in Texas, I see the solution to be underground greenhouses. We need to be able to create our own soil . . . keep out the pestilence . . . and ignore the weather.

Speaking of pestilence . . . I also for the first time had a great crop of yellow summer squash. I was picking a dozen every few days and giving them away to all my friends. One day, I went out to pick for the in-laws, and they were completely wiped out. All of the leaves and squash were gone . . . just stems left. Squash bugs can be bad here, but there was no evidence that they were the culprits.

Well . . . I think that is it for my edit. Smile

P.S. Thanks for the harvesting chart. Very helpful!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Gerrit's picture

happy for you. It's tough to persevere when all the elements are against you. But you do and lookit: a treasure store of homegrown food in a hard climate.

I so agree on increasingly having to grow food underground and indoors. Texas is now where many of us will be in the very near future: too hot, too unpredictable, too many bugs, etc. We talked about underground greenhouses back in the spring and we'll do more of that.

In the mean time, we could learn lots from permaculture on making the desert flower again. I'll post some stuff of Geoff Lawton, an Aussie farmer who does miracles. It seems you already do some of what he teaches.

Thanks for a wonderful read!

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earthling1's picture

With your soil.
" The Biochar Solution " by Albert Bates.
"The Biochar Debate" by James Bruges.
Both books refer to the "dark soil" of the ancient Amazon known as terra preta.
A soil that supported a civilization larger that the rest of the world.....combined.
There is much to learn, because so much has been forgotten.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

studentofearth's picture

I am influenced by my cooking techniques and taste preferences. Take the same consideration I would use if purchasing to stock a panty. Methods also change based on the variety of fruit or vegetable, state of ripeness and if I have to purchase processing supplies.

For Example:
I like tomato chunks in chili and marinara sauce. X number of canned quarts of whole tomatoes or quartered tomatoes, remove the skins (bitter), leave the seeds (nutrition). Can a few jars some blended sauce with spices for an instant soup base that tastes like I spent hours. Salsas go in the freezer, frozen tomatoes taste more like fresh.

Freeze summer squash, a few packages of thick slices, thin slices and chunks. The thick slices are frozen individually on cookie sheets first, bagged and then pull out individually to cook.

I like the look of dried fruits and vegetables, but they are the last ones I pull from the pantry for cooking. So I do not use the dryer much any more.

Do not have a root house available at this time, miss having one and will try and correct next year. Like it is best for the potatoes, carrots, winter squash and apples. I have not had much luck with mulching in place and harvest from the rows as needed.

Freeze the extra spinach and chard. Can the fruit. Almost get as much pleasure viewing a shell of canned pears, peaches and cherries as eating them.

Always try one new method each year. (don't forget fruit wines and ciders for the extra)

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mhagle's picture

And encouraging. Thank you for the details!

After trying every year for 24 years in Texas, this is the first year I have actually had success in harvesting. Part of it is that the weather worked in my favor finally. The other part comes from gathering information from what others on the Internet and like what you just shared and applying those nuggets of wisdom to my situation. Thank you!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Gerrit's picture

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WaterLily's picture

I started preserving (freezing) lots of stuff from the farmers' market several years ago. Now it's fun to start doing it with my own produce!

Do you have tips for eggplant? I have a bunch of it suddenly, but imagine it would be finicky for the freezer ...

Cheers. Smile

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Lookout's picture

The summer garden is about done. We've been using the crock pot on the porch with 'maters, onions, peppers, and garlic - cooking down to a sauce, then freezing. Makes for salsa, pasta, pizza, stew, soup, ...in the winter. Easy and cooler than canning in the house!

Getting cooler, but still dry in Alabama.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Gerrit's picture

smell of bread and the crock pot, I'm hungry a lot :=)

It's strange that your region is so dry. It's raining cats and dogs to the east and west of Alabama. Weird, eh?

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yellopig's picture

I'm planting peas this week! I'm in AZ, and it's finally cool enough (i.e., below 100°) to plant things that don't like the heat. I'm hoping to get in some lettuce & spinach too.

My tomatoes did not do well this year, but my pepper is still trying Smile

It's still an experimental garden; I need to get more serious about it.

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“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett

mhagle's picture

The Dollar Tree had seed packets 10 for $1. So I spent $10 and have many pea seeds. I am in Texas, so I guess I had better plant some of those tomorrow!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Gerrit's picture

I put them in too late and didn't attend to them enough.

I hear you on the lettuce. I put our salad plants into a planter box in half shade and the extra 2016 heat drove them bonkers. August was still too hot for arugula; I didn't even plant it.

Experiments R Us!
g

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mhagle's picture

Please post your pictures of your harvest!

These are mine:

Oops . . . got some pet pics in there too!

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Gerrit's picture

photos of your beds or crops :=) I'll try also.

Cool pet photos. Our old cat died this spring. She hated the dog, but my daughter's cat is fine with her. They'll snooze beside each other, just out of reach. Yours are tight!

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Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.