Non-stop harvest: How to keep your garden producing year-round

There might not be any better time for gardeners than harvest time. Finally seeing the results of a season’s labor paying off in a bounty of fruits and vegetables is a big reason to tend their crops each day.

Rhea Flores of Moses Lake reaps the benefits of her summer crops year-round and offered some tips on harvesting into the fall and winter.

Flores moved to her property in Mae Valley about a year and a half ago, an established homestead with more than 70 fruit trees. She said she grows a home garden for her family to eat from and sells her extra plant starts.

Flores said she recently picked about 11 pounds of tomatoes, which she referred to as “just the tip of the iceberg.” Flores said her family does a lot of canning, particularly near the end of August when there are vegetables ready to pick.

“We take all of those extras, and can them, and preserve them,” Flores said. “As we’re picking off the plants, I’m pruning things, making sure we’re not wasting the energy of the plants and more focused on the production of the fruits.”

While the plants tend to run their course at times no matter what she does, Flores said she tries to cut back her tomato plants, especially to help focus the plant’s energy on the fruit ripening. This year, she said she’s trying not pruning as much and her tomato plants have turned into a bit of a jungle.

With tomatoes, she said there’s no wrong way to do them, although she prefers to grow them on vertical trellises indeterminately rather than growing all the fruit at once, as is often the case with bush tomato plants.

The vertical trellises can grow as tall as 25 feet, but Flores said she keeps them pruned to a height she can reach. While she could get more fruit off her plants than she does, she said she goes for quality over quantity.

Flores said she has about 400 tomato plants this year and about 50 varieties. Cherry tomatoes come in first and pretty much ripen constantly throughout the growing season, she said. Slicers and beefsteak tomatoes tend to ripen all season, while pace tomatoes, which she uses for canning, tend to come in all at once.

With tomatoes, she said she suggests using feel rather than color to tell if the fruits are ready to be harvested. Because she grows green tomatoes, too, she said someone who didn’t know the difference might think they are all ready to be picked.

“All tomatoes, when they’re ripe, they’re slightly soft to the touch,” Flores said. “They all ripen at different stages, which is good for us.”

Even if tomatoes are picked before they’re ripe, Flores said they will typically ripen if left out on the countertop.

Flores said she also grows her cucumbers and squash vertically to let them go wild. The more the plants are picked, the more fruit will be produced, she said. Every time one is picked, that tells the plant its life cycle isn’t over and to continue getting blossoms and fruit, Flores said.

She said she will pick cucumbers all season, while she only grows one zucchini plant typically due to how prolifically it produces. Most of her squash she grows is for winter harvesting to help keep the family’s produce supply full through winter and fall.

“Butternut squash grows all season long. I put it in at the same time as cucumbers and everything,” Flores said. “Pick it right before the frost and it cures in your house and the shell around it hardens and it becomes a winter squash.”

Greens, such as kale and cabbage, are things Flores said she tries to keep around all year. Kale is one of the few plants that will overwinter in this area, so gardeners don’t have to replant it every year and can even pick it in winter, she said.

She has purple cabbage ready to harvest soon and already harvested her spring cabbage crop. Flores said she typically plants a second batch of cabbage for fall harvest and would typically put seeds in the ground about this time.

When first starting out gardening, Flores said she used to be bad about wanting to pick everything as soon as it was ripe and often found herself with a countertop full of produce slowly going bad. Now, she said she’s learned to leave it out in the garden if she isn’t going to use it right away and let it continue to grow, with the exception of zucchini and squash, which will continue to grow and become a treat for her ducks.

“I’m trying to make it to where every day I’m out there picking stuff, but not picking everything all at once,” Flores said.

She said she thinks the mindset with the majority of gardeners is it’s just a summer thing, and they’re missing out on fall and spring crops. While summer is the time of year people associate with fresh produce often, Flores said people can have a succession garden, where there’s fresh food through the winter.

Since she’s been selling her plant starts, Flores said she’s noticed more how people are using their garden beds.

“People focus on the hot crops, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and hot peppers, because it’s so easy to grow compared to something that would take more care in the fall because you have to pay attention to the weather,” Flores said.

With fall crops, she said it’s important to be careful in this area to not let a snap frost come through and kill a harvest. In addition to cabbage and other spring starts harvested in the fall, Flores said she likes to grow a crop of peas and some other greens. She also plants her garlic in the fall, which can winter over and be harvested around July.

Many gardeners simply get burnt out by the end of the summer and are still busy processing the harvest of crops. Flores said it’s one thing to make an intention to grow year-round, but it’s another mission in itself to eat everything pulled out of the garden and not let anything go to waste.