Tips on Lengthening Vegetable Harvests

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Wormboy Ronkonkoma, NY(Zone 6b) May 22, 2006

Hey all, before the veggies start pouring in, I was wondering if anyone had good tips on techniques to harvest your veggies to encourage the plants to keep producing as long as possible. Ways to cut veggies, prune back plants, etc. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

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Zeppy Shenandoah Valley, VA(Zone 6b) May 22, 2006

I do no pruning whatsoever. One of the best things you can do to both extend the harvest and fight diseases and pests is to succession plant. For example, I'll put my cukes in the ground tomorrow, and then I'll put some more in in three weeks, and so on. (Succession plant dill, too).

Beans: keep picking if they're pole varieties, or they'll stop producing. Don't let them grow up, say, a 13 foot sunflower unless you can pick them up there. Sucession plant to thwart the Japanese beetles. *Definitely* succession plant bush beans, as they're determinate.

Lettuce: plant varieties to suit the season, and put them in the shady places between tall crops like pole beans and tomatoes to extend their growing (and non-bolting) period.

Potatoes: grow early, middle and late season varieties.

Melons/pumpkins: grow some under covers to harvest later than usual.

Tomatoes: grow indeterminate varieties. Start a fall crop of a quick-maturing variety in July or thereabouts.

Grow fall crops (start in July/Aug) of carrots, broccoli, lettuces, beets & turnips. Maybe even peas. Overwinter those crops that will take it (some leeks, carrots, beets, turnips, greens) in the ground, if you have space, and harvest as needed. Grow a large amount of "winter greens," cover with some sort of row cover or tunnel so you can harvest those throughout winter too.

"Vegetable Gardener's Bible" and "Four-Season Harvest" are both good books for this sort of information.

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Wormboy Ronkonkoma, NY(Zone 6b) May 25, 2006

Wow,
Thanks Zep, excellent advice.

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reubenT Spencer, TN May 25, 2006

better advice i couldn't give. my ultimate season extender is a greenhouse with heated beds, a huge hot water heater (wood fired here because we have more wood than we can use) with thermostat controlled pumps to circulate it through pex tubing in a thin layer of cement on bottom of beds, with sheets of blue/pink foam underneath to insulate from cold ground. I'm working on outside stuff now but the growbeds are being put in as i can, hope to have it ready by Sept. It's a bit expensive to set up but really is supposed to work good.

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