Good Harvesting Practices Keep Veggies Producing

When mid-summer veggies start maturing in Connecticut gardens, keep them producing by picking often.

Pick tomatoes when they've reached full color and are still firm. If vines are heavy with fruit and near breaking, pick the tomatoes showing some color, then ripen them on a kitchen counter or windowsill.

Pole and bush beans are most tender before seeds begin to bulge in their pods.

Pick summer squash and cucumbers when smaller in size. Larger
summer squash and cucumbers are often drier and seed-filled.

Peppers are tasty at about any size but will be sweeter — and
more fiery if a hot variety — when left to mature on the vine.

Waiting too long to pick signals plants to slow flowering and send energy to seeds. So pick early and often to get more tasty veggies to table.

Tending gardens can become overwhelming during summer's
high temperatures and humidity. Sultry weather saps gardeners' get-up-and-go, yet weeds still thrive and soils still parch.

To keep gardens in shape without sacrificing a good chunk of each weekend, commit a few morning or evening minutes to a small task each weekday.

Mornings are made for watering. Sip your first coffee while watering potted plants. Without soaker hoses or irrigation? Use an easy-to-move rotating sprinkler. Run it about 15 or 20 minutes in a different spot each morning to supplement rainfall.

Ease weeding and deadheading by focusing on one area daily. Keep a pail, clippers and gardening gloves near garden beds to collect yanked weeds and spent blossoms.

Adopt these habits to reap the benefits of better looking
gardens and have more time for weekend pleasures and relaxation.

Read other gardening tidbits, reflection and methods at http://www.joenesgarden.com.

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