Tips on getting the optimum harvest from your four top vegetables
HOPEFULLY, you’ll now be reaping the rewards of your efforts with rich harvests from your vegetable patch. But there are ways to help the harvest.
TOMATOES
YOU should be picking tomatoes now, but many may still not be ripe. The secret is optimum sunshine, so remove the yellowing lower leaves up to the first truss. When these have ripened, take off the next set of leaves. If the leaves are really dense, you can thin them a little to help air circulation and light.
Cut off the growing tip of the plant, if you haven’t already done so, which will then transfer the remaining energy to the fruits to reach full size.
PEPPERS
IF the fruits are big, but still not ripe, they will need some support. Feed them regularly with a tomato fertiliser to help them along and pick peppers when they are ripe but the skin is still smooth.
If some have wrinkled skins, you may be better adding them to cooked dishes as they won’t taste good raw. Fruits store well and will keep for around 10 days in the fridge.
COURGETTES
YOU do not want to be letting your courgettes grow too large or they’ll just become watery, tasteless marrows, so check them at least twice a week, picking them when they reach around 15cm.
For best results, feed plants with a dilute tomato feed once a week and harvest them regularly throughout the month to encourage further cropping. Most types will continue to produce fruits until the first frosts.
RUNNER BEANS
LIKE sweetpeas, beans benefit from regular harvesting, which will promote further crops. Throughout summer, you should be picking them every other day, if you can, before they grow tough and stringy. The best time to pick them is when the bean snaps cleanly without any string, when it’s around 17-18cm long
Pick off every bean to prolong cropping into late summer and if you’re lucky, you should be picking them until October.