Garden Tedious Harvesting Pick Early and Pick Often part 2

“I never bend over to pick bush beans,” John Page says. He explains that, since most of the beans come at once, particularly in determinate varieties, there’s no sense in courting a backache simply because you hope to get the few beans that will appear after the main picking. “Just pull out the bean plant, take off all the beans while you’re standing up, and throw the plant in the compost.” Have a second planting under way for another harvest.

If you don’t want to bother with supports for pole beans, but you’d like to extend the harvest for bush beans, choose varieties that produce over a longer period of time: Royal Burgundy, Bush Blue Lake, Cherokee Wax, Eagle, Black Valentine, or Contender.

Thin fruit trees in spring, so fruits are six to ten inches apart. Trees will produce larger fruit, will have less damage from worms, and will set more fruit next year.

Potato growers in coastal areas should try a trick used in Maine for decades. Dig a trench about six inches wide and six inches deep. Fill it with seaweed. Place chunks of seed potatoes at intervals of ten to twelve inches, then cover them with four to six inches of seaweed. At harvest time, pull back the seaweed and pick up the potatoes. There’s none of that tiresome digging.

Save time when you harvest asparagus. Snap it off where the stalk toughens. Eliminate the chore of having to do this again in the kitchen, increase yields, and avoid injury to emerging spears by not cutting below the ground, as was once recommended. (That practice is to the advantage of the commercial grower, as it improves the keeping qualities of asparagus, but we home-growers rush it from garden to pot, anyway, right?) Harvest asparagus every day during the season. Once you let some stalks open into ferns, the harvest diminishes.

In warm regions, let three or four mother stalks of asparagus grow up from each plant after the harvest. Then sneak a second season by breaking off some of the new spears that emerge later on.

To harvest rhubarb stalks, hold near the bottom, twist and pull so that the stalk separates where it joins to the plant. Do not cut the stalks, or the juices will run from the cut, weakening the plant; and the remaining stalk will rot, inviting problems. “Red Valentine is better than the old green-stalked variety which turns gray when you cook it,” suggests a rhubarb fan. To freeze, chop and put it in a bag — period. Rhubarb is a favorite among lazy gardeners — easy to grow, easy to harvest, pest free, and easy to freeze.

The best keeper among winter squashes is Butternut.

Triple-duty vegetables appeal to the lazy gardener:

Try Park’s Kuta squash. Eat young like summer squash. Eat at midsize like eggplant. Eat at maturity like winter squash. It can be stored at this stage.

Plant Burpee’s Triple Treat pumpkins, good for jack-o-lanterns, pies, and high-protein snacks from the hull-less seeds. You can eat the seeds raw or roasted. To prepare, scoop them out, wash, and separate from fiber. Spread thinly on paper towels and dry for a few days in a warm, airy place. To roast, toss two cups of seeds with one and a half tablespoons of oil and a sprinkling of salt and place in a 250° oven until golden brown. Watch carefully and shake the pan every now and then.

You get three huge zucchini and search for recipes to use them up. Two loaves of zucchini bread and one cake later, you still have two huge zucchini. Here’s where five minutes in the garden daily can save you hours later. Pick zucchini every day. When it’s only finger-length, even before the blossom falls off, it is a gourmet’s delight. Eat raw with a dip or throw thin, raw slices into salads. Sauté tender young rounds in garlic and olive oil and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Pickle whole or vertically sliced young zucchini, using a garlic-dill recipe.

If zucchini does get ahead of you, grate it finely (a food processor makes quick work of this), squeeze hard to eliminate as much liquid as possible, bag in one-cup portions, and freeze to use later in soups, breads, or stews.

Young spinach — the younger the better — is delectable in salads or quickly stir-fried or steamed. Eat as much as you can when it’s little.

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