Harvest Time! A Quick & Easy Guide

There are three ways to do it:

• All-in-one harvest
• Two stage harvest
• Gradual harvest

With this method, you only harvest fruit as and when they ripen.

Your plants can then refocus their energy to fruit and flowers that aren’t fully ripe. If you’re growing chillies, tomatoes or cucumbers, which continue to produce, this is a great option.

Here, you harvest most of the produce in one go and leave the last few undeveloped fruit or flowers to finish off before taking them.

It’s unlikely that all fruit and flowers will be ready to remove in one go. But, if you harvest most of them, you’ll put a fair bit of stress on your plants, forcing them to focus energy on the last few remaining bits.

This method also suits chillies, tomatoes and cucumbers, but is also great for the likes of basil.

This is where you harvest everything at once, no matter how ripe it is. If your plant doesn’t continue to produce (like sunflowers or sweetcorn) this is a good option.

For plants that continue to produce, you’ll ultimately sacrifice some of your yield with this method. But if you’ve got pest problems or have plants waiting to go into your flowering room, needs must.

Remove ripe fruit or flowers. You can use trimming scissors, a scalpel or just pinch them off.

However you do it, make sure the break is clean. If it’s not, you can stress plants.

Once harvest is complete, if you’re not going to use the produce immediately, pop it on a drying rack. This’ll let them dry up, or finish ripening without becoming mouldy.

You can remove all produce in one go, or repeat the process when more fruit and flowers have ripened.