Harvesting the fruits and vegetables of your labor

​​​From the beginning of June till the end of September the various crops that come keep me almost more busy than the planting season. Harvesting the vegetables when they're at their prime is a tricky game and one that can catch you by surprise, especially when all the peas come on at once, the lettuce starts to bolt, and the beets grow so quickly that you don't even remember when you planted them or why you thought you needed so many.

One day you can have thin flat peas or beans that look about a week from harvest and the next they're all as plump as a well fed pup and ready to burst their skins.

Picking early in the morning is the best when the fruit and vegetables are most crisp. If you wait until the sun is too high it's too warm and the sugars aren't as sweet.

I use every bucket, basket, bowl, and tub I can collect during harvest and try to keep as many handy in the garden as possible since I never know when something will be ripening. As I clean and prepare the vegetables I end up filling the same buckets I carried the vegetables in with the compost and leaves of the harvested vegetables.

I've finally improved the yield from my garden to where I can start to sell some of the excess at local farmers markets. It's a lot of work to get the produce ready to sell at the market and it's easy to go in the hole with the cost of gas, fees, etc. so it's good to have a plan and even share a table with someone else as you get started. Pricing the vegetables, cleaning, providing bags, etc. can be very time consuming and eat up profits. Just know that it's not a quick way to make a buck and go into it with the goal of having fun meeting new people and sharing your harvest. Eventually you'll learn the ropes and hopefully make enough to compensate for your time and energy.  But probably not.

Here are some pictures of some of my more bounteous harvests.