When To Pick And What To Do With Vegetables
When To Pick And What To Do With Vegetables From Your Garden
For many a backyard garden there are lots of surplus vegetables and fruits that can result, especially if you have a good season and crop yields that exceed your expectation.
Knowing when to pick , pack, store and preserve them can go a long way in keeping the bounty giving way into the winter months!
A cooler-room in the basement can help you store vegetables as well. For rot/waste composting or burying it in the ground are alos viable options. Feeding the soil and replenishing lost nutrients are always good practises.
Ensure that it is in a spot where there is suffiecient drainage. Pick the size, shape, depth and widthcover with straw, mulch, b est done in the fall-season as things start winding down in the vegetable garden outside.
Secrets and Tips for storing vegetables:
Ensure that the space is clean and dry
Fruits/vegetables must not be bruised or damaged, with no visible signs of rot or decay - also watch for mold or sprouting
Temperature should be regulated, even and steady (33-38 degrees) with no fluctuations
Ventilation and smell-control (lime or whitewash) ensured
No rodents or other pests
Here are some more great suggestions, past jams, jellies, pickling and freezing:
Canning or preserving are also always viable options to consider to make your produce and crop last way into the winter.
Dried beans are excellent in soups and stews place, dry and/or shell them
Beets can be buried and stored in dry sand indoors
Best frozen, Brussels sproutscan easily last until around December. Store onions in barrels, dry and ventilated space best
Parsley can be kept in a flower or window-sill planter in a sunny window
Parsnips can be left in the ground. Potatoes are typcially stored in a cool, dry cellar when taken out.Light will make them bitter. Tomatoes - place on window sill to ripen.
Other gardening priorities in the ‘quiet seasons’
Weeding should remain a priority for the vegetable gardner well into the fall and winter. Weeds and seeds all continue their lifecycles, so do not make your spring even harder on yourself!
Keep your garden clean and neat at all times, to avoid making more and unneccessary work for yourself.
Composting can be a great way to feed your garden. Cover and feed your soil before ‘putting it to bed for the season’ so to speak.
Pack away all garden tools, remove and cover stakes, store in dry placee. Burn all weeds (ensure a permit is not required and if so, get one prior to lighting up!)
Winter is a time for reflection and staring the cycle all over again. Learn from mistakes and successes and implement these in your plans for the following season! | 
