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You Must Watch some important Signs and indications before Harvesting Root crops and veggies for container vegetable gardening. In today’s episode we will look into some important vegetable gardening tips and indications on Harvesting your root vegetables, like How to tell when, these are ready to be harvested.
Root Crops or Root Vegetables are underground plant parts that are harvested and eaten by humans as food. These can be roots, bulbs, rhizomes or tubers. We will not go into the botanical details of these terms for now.
The Commonly grown root vegetables include Carrots, Raddish, Beets, Onions, Potatoes and many many more. It’s a big list and a big classification. Now, we will quickly look into certain signs and tips which are really useful for everyone whether you grow veggies in containers or in ground.
- The first tip actually is, a reason why this Harvest timing is so important. Do not let them grow too larger because they can become tough and woody to taste and may not be chewable. You know what I mean by this. Yes the size is very important.
- Beets and Turnips should be pulled out as soon as they grow to the size of a golf ball, but never allow them to grow to the size above a tennis ball. Tender roots are actually the best to taste. Now you may ask a question, All these are lying underground and how would I know the size of these veggies. You will get answers to these questions in the coming tips. So please watch it till the end. Next:
- We will start with some tips or signs that indicate, your veggies are ready to harvest. We will start with Carrots, Beets and Radish or Turnips: First of all you must know that their Green leaves are edible and really tasty. If its too early, you can just snip off some leaves if you want to have them. As long as you leave some greens on the plant, it will continue to grow more of them.
- When it comes to roots, that’s the main veggie! Remember: the smaller the root, the better it tastes! So when to pull it out? Pull the largest roots every time you harvest. If you become greedy and leave them under for a long time they get woody and bitter to taste.
- So which is the biggest one or how to know if its ready to be pulled out? Just Look at the green leaves, and Remember this General rule: the bigger the root under the soil, the darker the green leaves and thicker the stem. So, If some of the greens in the row look darker than the others, you can be sure the largest root veggies are underneath.
- Another Tip here: – Beets. carrots and radish, grow partly above the soil, especially when they mature. But sometimes you can remove some of the top soil and check the thickness or the size of the crown – that’s the top portion, before pulling them out.
- Then, The Dates on the seed packets will also give you a rough idea about when you should expect them to be fully ripe, Generally its about 40 to 60 or more days, but you can apply some of these tips shown in this episode and decide combining all the knowledge you gain in this episode.
- Well, the Next tip is: If you planted seeds too close and you see there is congestion, specially in container gardening – you can pull out some baby roots like carrots or radish because these are really soft and delicious to eat. This will also relieve the congestion and allows remaining crops to grow to their proper size.
- When it comes to Onions and Garlic: Onions can be left for storage or harvested when the leaves turn yellow or the necks at the base bend. You should stop watering them and then harvest or store them. If you wish to consume the onion leaves or spring onions, they are really delicious. You can snip off and prepare your favourite dish.
- Potatoes: Generally take a longer time like about 10 to 12 weeks after planting and the first indication is when the plant starts flowering. This is the time they generally attain their proper size. Snip off the flowers to divert the plant energy to get bigger sized potatoes. The final indication of harvesting is when the plant starts to become yellow and eventually dries off. You can check my detailed post on some useful hacks and tricks to grow lots of potatoes in containers.
