Harvesting questions

Now that my veggies are putting forth edible food, I have questions.

How do you harvest broccoli? Do you break the head off? Do you cut it off? Where should the decapitation take place? The middle of the stalk?

When picking a tomato, do you take the whole stem or do you pick it off at the top of the fruit? Same question for the pole beans and cukes. Gotta make sure they still produce, so I don't want to remove too much.

How do you know when to pull up carrots?

I guess that's enough for now.

1. Broccoli; cut just below the flower head.

2. Tomato, just pick the tomato. You don't want any stem.

3. Carrot; You can pull anytime the carrot is big enough for your use.

4. Cucumber ; no stem. The cuke usually breaks off with a slight pull and twist.

4. Ditto for green beans either pole or snap. A slight pull on the pod usually seperates it from the stem. You do not want to harm the vine.

This message was edited Jul 5, 2008 1:27 PM

Thank you!

You have some mighty fine looking veggies there! I hope mine do that well.

When picking cukes, you wait for all the pricklies to be gone, correct?
Meaning the cuke's surface is nice and smooth.

This message was edited Jul 15, 2008 7:39 AM

All the varieties I've ever dealt with will still have some "prickles" on them when they are ready to be picked. They will be small and feel like little bits of sand. If you plan to eat the cucumber with the skin still on, you can rub those prickles off with your hand when you wash it.

Agreed, there are a few cultivars without spines, but they don't usually taste as good. In general the white spine types for eating fresh and the black spine types for pickles.

Thank you NatureLover and FarmerDill!

Well then! Out I go to pick my first cucumber ever! Yup, only one, but there's little ones popping out now. Most turned brown and died, but there are a few that are about 2 1/2 inches long now.

I'm not sure how you tell the color of the spines since I see green spines, but I'll watch more closely to see. I eat the pickling ones fresh anyway, those are more my family's size without waste since I'm the veggie freak and the rest are not too interested. The pickling cukes are the perfect snack size cucumber.

I do intend to try some pickling this year.

I had to take a pic for you. My very first cucumber.

I got LOT'S of cukes this year and have made LOT'S of pickles. They're not too hard to make and my grandkids love them (actually, so does everyone else). I have some crispy sweet pickle slices that my grandson loves so much he will sit and eat an entire jar! Good luck with your pickling.