This harvesting mistake may cost you all your gardening efforts!
If you are thinking growing vegetables organically is challenging, knowing when is the best time to harvest can be even more daunting and confusing. Read on to know more…
How well the vegetable develops depends on the overall growing conditions and resources available.
If the conditions and resources are suboptimal, they will not grow to their full size yet will mature to their next stage.
The size of the vegetable as an indicator to harvest can be deceiving!
Oftentimes, we lose the harvest, entirely waiting for the size compared to what we buy in the market.
Therefore, the time of harvest, irrespective of the size, is a more reliable indicator to enjoy the harvests at their tenderest best how much ever small they may be.
If we develop the practice of noting the dates of sowing/planting and knowing the time to harvest of each vegetable we grow, it takes us a long way in enjoying tender yields consistently.
Here is a list of few most commonly grown vegetables with their time to harvest from sowing.
| 3-4 Weeks | 4-5 weeks | 6-7 weeks | 8-9 weeks | 10-12 weeks |
| Methi | Most greens | Radish | Beetroot | Carrot |
| Spinach* | Knol kohl | Cabbage | ||
| Okra* | Cauliflower | |||
| Broccoli | ||||
| Potato | ||||
| Onion | ||||
| Tomato* | ||||
| Chilli* | ||||
| Most gourds* | ||||
| Brinjal* |
* Time to first harvest. These plants continue to produce for several weeks.
Some plants produce vegetables for a period of time (*). For such plants, it is better to use other more helpful indicators.
Vegetables that change color when they start ripening like; Tomato, Papaya, banana etc. can be harvested when they just start to change color. They will ripen on the shelf.
Gourds should be harvested when they stop growing in size. How do you know? Vist your garden regularly, observe your plants growth and track those gourds when they start growing. When you observe that from yday to today, it did not grow in size, they are ready to harvest.
Important: All said, how a plant responds to your inputs depends on the particular variety planted. So, know more about what you are planting.
Happy harvesting!
One Comment