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Summer Harvest
by Diane Heeney

Description: How and when to harvest your summer produce.

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Summer is here and you can finally reap the rewards from all your spring planting labor.  Picking at just the right time ensures the best flavor and quality for home grown produce.

Potato vines naturally turn yellow and wither.  You can start to harvest as soon as the potatoes are large enough to make the effort to cook.  Small golf ball size make great creamed or boiled potatoes.  Add some buttered chives, and you have a real treat.

Sweet peppers can be harvested while still green, or allowed to remain on the vine until they turn red.  Be sure and leave an inch or so of stem on the pepper for better storage.  Removing the seeds and cutting the peppers in strips also helps storage life.

Cantaloupes will turn from green to yellow and slip from the vine with a gentle tug. They should be aromatic.  If you press your fingernail in and hear a crunch, wait another day or two to pick.

Cabbages can be harvested when they reach the size you want.  Leave the stem in the ground and slit the stalk in quarters about 1-2 inches deep.  With any luck, 4 new, smaller heads will grow back.

Broccoli can also be harvested at the size you prefer.  It is also a cut and come again vegetable, so leave the stalk in place.

For mature onions, when about half the tops are bent over, bend down the rest.  When the tops are fully dried down, pull the onions, and lay in partial shade to cure.  When thoroughly dry, braid into an onion braid, or clip the tops and store in an open mesh bag.

Pick corn when the silks are brown and the ear is rounded and plump. Green beans, cucumbers, and summer squash are best harvested when they are small.

Gourds and pumpkins should have hard enough rind that you cannot dent it with a fingernail.  Give them a wash with a weak bleach and water solution to help maintain their storage quality.

If you are experiencing problems with tomatoes showing signs of blackened, sunken spots, they probably have blossom end rot.  This is a calcium absorption problem that can be helped by more even watering, and mulching.

I'm a 99% organic gardener, and only resort to commercial sprays as a last resort.  Soapy water can be used for soft-bodied insects.  If a particular pest is bothering you, you can grind some of the culprits up in an old blender with water and spray plants they are feeding on.

Another all purpose spray is made by chopping onions, stem and all, with a quart of water and a couple garlic cloves and a hot pepper or two.  You can add a squirt of dish soap to make the mix stick better to your plants.  I do caution when using any concoction, do a small test section on your particular plants to ensure they can withstand this loving treatment.

Always encourage birds to your yard.  They are our best line of defense again insects.  Providing water, habitat, and food brings you insect protection, and great entertainment.

Limiting your use of pesticides also protects our beneficial pollinators.  Honey bees are having a very difficult time surviving, because a type of mite is attacking their colonies.  Entire hives are being decimated, negatively affecting the bees, beekeepers, and ultimately our food supplies.

As a last resort, use rotenone.  It has little residual effect and is considered safe to man and animals.  However, it is also toxic to the good insects, as well as the bad, so use sparingly.

Fencing is the best method for real animal control in your garden.  Blood meal can deter deer and rabbits, but must be reapplied after a rain.  It is a good fertilizer, however.  Slugs can be attracted to stale beer in flat containers, or to old boards or lettuce leaves in the garden area.  Salting cabbage heads while covered with dew, might repel cabbage worms.

Some swear red pepper sprinkled on corn silks will keep raccoons from dining on corn.  It is also said planting vine crops around the corn patch will keep them out.

We live in the country and raise sweetcorn. We do have our Labrador dog's kennel right by the corn patch.  We haven't been bothered by raccoon raiders. I think maybe the raccoons heard his name is "Old Yeller" because they've been visiting the neighbors instead, much to our delight.

Reprinted with permission.