Pick As You Need Crops!

[Bigmallly]

Just wondering if anyone grows crops that they can pick as they need them rather than emptying the whole bed. I grow the following for this reason:

Parsnips..............Leeks..............Brassicas.

[roitelet]

Swiss chard, celeriac and sprouts

[veggiechicken]

Beetroot, carrots, swede............

[rary]

I have leeks, kale and chard for winter picking, but at present I am still pulling runner beans, I have never had them as late as this before. Also useing small cabbage grown on the old stems with a X cut into it

[Bren In Pots]

Lettuce......Jerusalem artichokes ....radish pods

[Bigmallly]

This is great, at this rate I'll only have to do one days planting out......................

[Lisasbolt]

Cabbages, leeks, onions, beetroot for whomever i can give it to.
Potatoes for a while.

[noviceveggrower]

The older guy from Beech Grove Garden said on one episode that if you have a poly tunnel or green house you should be able to have crops going all year round. Think he had some kale in his.

[bario1]

I've never harvested a whole bed of anything - the nearest I've come is harvesting a whole row of broccoli raab, as there's only a few days where it seems to be at it's best. Once a thief 'harvested' a whole bed of beetroot for me.

[hamamelis]

How about perennials like sorrel and salad burnet? OK, so hardly something you can make a full meal of, but plant once and pick for years sounds pretty good to me!

[vixylix]

I dont think I harvested anything in one go - either when I needed it, or when it needed picking and everything else waited patiently! Actually - I did pull up my onions and garlic in one go, but lettuce, spring onions, carrots, beetroot, radish and spinach were all as and when I needed them

[Bigmallly]

Thanx for the responses, gives me something to think about.

[Chippy Minton]

I'm with the not "harvesting" much brigade. We do dig up onions, shallots and garlic together, everything else is on a need to eat basis. We overpick beans because they need to be pick quicker than we can eat them, and I dug up the last spuds because the slugs were getting them.

But then our space is quite small so we can generally eat stuff faster than it becomes available

[Alison]

I'm really struggling to think of anything I harvest in one go other than main crop potatoes. Everything else gets picked either as its ready or when it's needed depending on what it is. I find a lot of the older heritage varieties better for this, many of the newer varieties seem to be bred for commercial outfits who want to harvest mechanically in one go rather than little and often to extend harvests and avoid gluts, which is what I want.

[Penellype]

I'd almost never go out and clear a whole bed at once. Even with something like onions which I am going to store, I will start by picking them as I need them while the tops are still partly green, and then I bring them in once they have died off, leaving the others in the ground until I need the space. I might clear the bed if the weather has been dry and prolonged rain is expected though.

I clear potatoes a bucket at a time - I used to just dig the ones I wanted when I used bags, but with buckets its so much easier to tip the lot onto a sheet, and they store well anyway.

I think I tend to lean a bit the other way really - for example I will leave the odd pea plant if there are a couple of immature pods, even if all the other plants have died back and been removed. It does depend a lot though on whether or not I need the space for something else! Even carrots (as long as they are under nets) are pulled from their pots a couple at a time, exactly as the books all tell you not to!