Interactive lesson

Harvest and a longer season, step by step

Interactive lesson: pick at the right time, get vegetables ready for the store and stretch the season with tunnels, covers and a winter garden.

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The whole lesson as text

1. When it's ripe

Most of the work goes in during spring, but most of the food is lost at harvest.

Pick so it crops — A plant fruits to make seed. Leave an overripe fruit on it and the plant thinks the job is done and stops flowering.
Courgette and cucumber — Pick courgettes at 15–20 cm (6–8 in), with a knife; bigger ones are watery. Cucumbers for salad at 15–20 cm, for pickling at 5–10 cm, with scissors, without pulling the vine.
Tomato at the knuckle — It's ripe when it has full colour and is slightly softer to the touch. Lift the fruit upwards and it snaps at the knuckle of the stalk.
Beans with two hands — They're full, with the seeds just showing, and they snap cleanly. Hold the plant with one hand and pick with the other, every 2–3 days.

Why: A courgette left for three days becomes a marrow nobody eats. Beans nobody picks stop cropping. Regular picking is the simplest way to double your harvest.

For transport and preserving, also pick tomatoes “at the turn” of colour.
An aubergine is ripe while its skin is glossy and tight; once it softens and loses its shine, it's overripe.

2. How to pick

The same vegetables picked at the right time of day last longer and rot less.

Leafy crops in the morning — Pick lettuce, spinach, chard, peas and herbs in the morning, while it's cool. They are full of water and stay fresh longer.
Sharp tools, shallow crates — A sharp knife, harvest snips and clean shallow crates or trugs. Fruit in a deep bucket gets bruised.
Roots without mud — Lift carrots, beetroot, potatoes and onions with a fork, not from mud. From mud they are hard to clean and keep worse.
Into the shade at once — Never leave picked produce in the sun, even for half an hour. Dip leafy crops in cold water, drain and put them in the fridge or a cool larder.

Why: Leafy crops are full of water in the morning, fruit picked dry doesn't rot in store, and roots from mud are hard to clean. Snapped vines, a trampled bed and fruit torn off by hand open the way to disease.

Don't put fresh manure on beds of vegetables eaten raw: let at least 120 days pass before picking crops that touch the soil, or use well-rotted compost.
Wash your hands before picking and vegetables before eating. Don't pick from wet bean and tomato plants: you carry disease from leaf to leaf.