Home Gardeners and Root Vegetables

Sometimes new home gardeners have a difficult time trying to figure out when to harvest their root vegetables. Most home gardeners want to enjoy the health benefits of green gardening and want to make sure their kitchens get the best from all their labors. So now is the time to give a few tips for picking ripe roots.

This may sound a little silly but there are a lot of new gardeners that do not hold on to the empty seed packets of the vegetables they planted. There is nothing wrong with being neat and tidy but you just might want to save the packets in a jar or folder for future reference. It would probably be a good idea to keep a notebook on all the root vegetables you are growing; it is a lot easier to find information from a notebook than rummaging through a jar for a particular one. Most of those seed packets give a guide as to when that particular vegetable will be ready for eating; having this information handy you will know when to begin checking for ripeness or maturity.

The leaves of some of the plants will often time give you clues about when they are ready. Onions, shallots and parsnips will be ready for picking when their leaves die down. Onions and shallots should be left in the ground for two weeks after the leaves have turned yellow and fall over. They can then be removed from the ground and dried for storage. Parsnips can be removed gently with a garden fork for eating when the leaves have died down. They can stay in the ground longer if desired but you will need to cover the tops with a heavy layer of hay or straw to prevent damage from frost. Potato foliage will also give you a clue to its readiness. For the early varieties wait until the buds or flowers have wilted, but not earlier than June, and then gently dig a little of the soil away from the tubers to check for their size. The best harvesting size all depends on the variety of the potato. The main crop potatoes are generally harvested from September and later when the foliage on the plant begins to die and turn yellow.

Some of the root vegetables are quite good when they are immature. This includes turnips, beetroot, and carrots. You can 'thin' out your root vegetable garden by digging out some of the small, young roots to be eaten as baby produce, the rest can be left to grow and mature. It is a way to have delicious sugar sweet tidbits early in the growing season. You can pick carrots at any time after the tops have sprouted and beetroot can be picked once it reaches golf ball size for a young root but do not let it grow larger than 9 inches, or cricket ball size, before mature harvesting. Baby turnips are generally ready about six weeks after planting.

Sometimes if you are not sure when to harvest a root you can carefully loosen the soil around a 'trial' root with a garden fork or spade and gently work it free. Carrots are deemed mature when they reach a diameter of about 1 inch or less, or between 2 - 2.5 centimeters although you can let them get bigger if you so desire. Carrots, just as the parsnips, will need a little protection from the frost, so a straw or hay covering will allow you to leave them in the ground over the winter. Swedes or rutabagas can be harvested when they are large enough for use or can be left in the ground and lifted, when needed, through to spring.

Most gardeners leave parsnips and rutabagas in the ground until late fall. The roots of these vegetables can be 10-12 inches long, so you need to be careful you do not break the root while harvesting them. The easiest way to dig them up is by using a spading fork. Radishes are generally ready for picking three to five weeks after they have been planted. You can pull them at any time once they arrive at a usable size. If they are left in the ground too long they can become pithy and acquire a strong taste.

In order for home gardeners to have perfect produce is to make sure that the day to harvest is a dry day if at all possible. The roots are going to have to dry before they can be stored in a cool, dark place. Many home gardeners have found that if the roots are stored correctly they will last for long periods and they still had autumn pickings to enjoy well into the New Year.