Hallelujah Harvest

Whoot!  Whoot! Stuff is growing and now you can start harvesting and eating the delicious veggies you have grown with your own hands.  What a great feeling! It is so exciting when you pull up the first carrot of the season, brush it off and take a bite.  It tastes like sunshine!

Check out the “Days to Maturity” on your seed package.  Harvest your veggies early and often. Some veggies will grow quicker than others and you may be able to plant two crops over a growing season (radishes, peas, lettuce, and carrots).  Last year we planted lettuce and radishes from seed in the second week of August.  Harvest the veggies before the plant has produced seeds.

As individuals, we take what we need when we are at the garden looking after our plants (pull up a potato as needed, but do not dig up the potato plant yet), but Sunday (throughout the season, not just for harvesting) is the day everyone meets at the farm and works as a group. On warm Sundays, we picnic after the work is done.  We harvest everything we can for the day and divide it up amongst ourselves.  Harvesting is best done on a cloudy day.  If it is sunny, try and harvest mid morning after the dew has dried and before it gets too hot. Carrots and potatoes do not like to be exposed to the sun.  Whenever you can, eat what you have picked the same day.  Refrigerate lettuce, beets and carrots as soon as possible.  Tomatoes ripen best at room temperature while potatoes and onions require a curing period before you store them for the winter.  If the snap peas even make it to your kitchen (I eat a ton while I am picking them), shell and freeze them (there are many websites that instruct how to freeze veggies).  Cut the tops of the lettuce plant (for Romaine, pull out the whole plant) and it will keep growing. 
You will be so grateful for the wonderful, nutritious food you have grown!