Gardening and Landscaping Stack Exchange
Gardening and Landscaping Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [harvesting]

Questions about when and how to harvest crops.

Gardeners grow a range of plants for eating. Different plants have different requirements - e.g. they might die when harvested, or harvesting might promote more fruit/veg growth. Use this tag for questions about when to harvest, how best to harvest, and how frequently.

You should use this tag in conjunction with the relevant tag(s) for the crops that you are inquiring about.

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How do I know when to take butternut off the vine?

My family recently added butternut to the selection of fruit and vegetable plants in the garden. The plants are in a reasonably sized pot, growing onto concrete at one side and an earth/stubbly grass plot on the other. Our particular experience that…
Nij
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How can I grow better shaped yellow squash?

I am growing some early prolific straight neck yellow squash in my raised bed. I am getting a lot of flowers and squashes but they don't seem to be growing to full size. Am I doing something wrong? See pictures.
JStorage
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What is the best way to pick tomatoes?

What is the best way to pick tomatoes? Removing the stem+tomato from the plant or simply removing the tomato only, leaving the stem on the plant? Does it matter?
Geremia
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Harvesting Broccoli

I am growing some late season broccoli in my backyard in a raised bed. How do I decide the right time to harvest the broccoli? Are there any visual clues I can use? I can't use the time from planting because I don't remember when I planted and…
JStorage
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What apple tree is this?

I bought the house in January. There are two apple trees side by side. One is more of a crab apple tree with mall apples that turn red. But the other tree grows bigger yellow-ish apples. I've picked enough to bake a pie and it was really good! Some…
Breanna Despres
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How do I promote ripening and harvest peppers correctly?

I'm trying to get some growth and color to my orange peppers. Will they color quicker with more sun or less? What about more water or less water? Finally, I understand that I should not cut them off the plant, but instead carefully pull off the…
Jay
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When can I harvest cauliflower leaves for juicing?

Does my cauliflower need all its leaves to reach maturity? I'd like to harvest some for roasting and juicing.
Ashley
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First time grower of Spinach - first harvest went well, now the plant is unweildly

This is my first year at a garden and I have some bloomsdale spinach I planted mid-May and had a nice harvest about 3 weeks ago: lots of leaves big and small, very bushy, tasted delicious. The plants were about 2.5 ft. tall and I left any leaves…
Ryan Wheale
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How long after full coloring do I harvest grapes?

I always harvested our juice grapes (concord) soon after full coloring, but I recently met someone who leaves theirs on until they begin to soften, many weeks later. Is there a certain time to harvest grapes, that gets the best balance of shelf…
J. Musser
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How to cut optimally the basil on my balcony?

My context: I have a basil in a pot which is unfortunately not very big. I like to cook with basil and sometimes I cut some leafs. My question: Is there a way to cut the leafs in order to maximize the regeneration of the plant? E.g. cut the buds or…
Surb
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Harvesting wrinkled jalapeños

After returning home from vacation I found many of my jalapeños to be wrinkled and shriveled up. I suspect they are a couple of weeks past ripe, though I'm new to gardening so I don't know. Is it safe to dry them and use them in recipes? Or maybe…
Bryan Ward
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When to cut chives for drying, and can I separate them?

Should I wait until my chives have bloomed to cut them for or can I cut them anytime? Will the taste be different? I'm growing them in a small terracotta pot inside. They're small but I read online to snip them when they're about 8" tall, and…
Christy B.
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Harvesting Sunchokes in Spring?

I have raised beds, and I noticed sunchokes beginning to grow this spring. I cut down (and thought I had ripped out) the single sunchoke I planted last spring sometime around Christmas last year thinking that was the end of it (didn't even try it…
cmcculloh
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Pear trees, time from blossom to harvest?

I have some very old pear trees. The orchard has had 75-100 years of neglect. There has been no irrigation. Julian normally has little to no rain May-Sept but this year there was rain n May and two inches in July. This is the first year we have…
CW Holeman II
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How to harvest whole walnuts of a tall tree in one day?

This picture show a walnut harvest machine. But I think this machine is useful for walnut trees that are around 10 meters height. I don't know which kind of machine is appropriate for trees around 30 meters height. people do this using some kind of…
MySky
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