Harvest Time — How to Make It Easy?

The harvest period can be a hustle. This is why we’ve prepared a quick and easy guide on how to be ready for collecting your crops. Timely and almost painlessly.

Smart Harvest

Trim trays, shovels, pruners, gloves, wheelbarrows… Harvest is a challenging time, even if you toil just a small garden. Luckily, there are a few tips that will help you be prepared in advance and do the work faster.

Check-up

A garden needs a daily inspection when the harvest season comes. And here’s why: you might accidentally miss the moment of ripening. You won’t just neglect veggies/fruits but also will leave them rotting. And it may attract various pests: ethylene is a magnet to fruit flies and other varmints.

Smaller tasks

Break your harvest schedule into smaller tasks. Each herb can be collected in its own time: today, you focus on cucumbers, tomorrow on bell peppers. This is because every plant has its own ripening algorithm ‘coded’ by nature.

Size matters

It differs from one herb to another, but in many cases, it’s preferable to pick the vegetables until they grow too big. For example, a ripe zucchini has the best taste and vitamin balance when it reaches a moderate size. If you didn’t know, they grow overly big carrots, beets or cantaloupes to feed cattle. However, don’t be discouraged if you miss the moment, and some of your radishes or eggplants will grow gargantuan. There are many ways to use them in culinary.

Protection

Though honest and sweaty, garden labour also needs to be ergonomic, with a lot of your time spent kneeling. So, knee pads with memory foam will protect your knee joints from arthritis-inducing stress and muscles from pain.

Cushioning your feet is also a good idea. Probably you’ll have to stand for hours, so it’s quite important to relieve the stress that your ankles, heels, shoulders, and spinal cord receive. A gel or memory foam mat can do the trick.

Easy does it

You will need to be careful and gentle while picking the harvest, especially when it comes to berries, plums, grapes, and so on. It’s not about good looks, though: a fruit, berry or vegetable with a bruised skin will rot much faster, diminishing your produce in quality.

Manoeuvring

Literally watch where you go: you can squash unharvested produce and even slip on it. It’s preferable you remove all sorts of cables/wires from your garden a day prior to harvesting.

Pick stems early

Some herbs deliver no fruit: lettuce, broccoli, kohlrabi, etc. It is critical to pick them early in the ripening stages. At that moment, they are in the ‘top shape,’ having the juiciest flavour.

Medical check

Kill two birds with one stone and monitor the condition of your herbs while harvesting. If you notice any suspicious spots, discolouration, abnormal tissue, powdery growth, cracks — these are the signs that your herbs are ailing or plagued by pests.

The Sharpest Harvest

These tips are basic but they will help you become a more efficient gardener. Follow them, and the next harvest season will be much easier.