Harvesting Fruits From Your Garden
Edible Gardens · plants · Recipe

Harvesting Fruits From Your Garden

PlantsandBeyond

Harvesting fruits and vegetables in your garden can always be a fun job to do. This is my favorite part of the gardening, needless to say, a very rewarding one.

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When you plan and get a garden of your own, the idea of planting fruit bushes and trees is very exciting. Researching different fruit tree varieties, proper planting zones, space for future fruit maturation, watering needs, sun penetration and an ideal spot in the garden around your house would be most beneficial for the optimal fruit harvest.  It takes a couple of years to establish a root system, at least. It also might take years and patience to see the flowers develop and turn into fruits, but that depends on the age of your purchased tree. Here are some tips on how to reap fruits or harvest them at the end of your growing season.

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When to pick fruit

The time to pick your fruits will largely depend on the type of fruit you are picking and your residential location. Most of the time you will find that berries such as raspberries and strawberries become ripe during the end of June and mid-July in the West coast or Spring on the East. Avocadoes by November, citrus by Winter, mulberry by April, Mangos by Fall, it just all depends where you are in this world. If you see the squirrels dancing around or near the garden, then its time to check on your fruit. Also, trails of insects are signs of possible brewed food source. Of course, if the fruit is still green, let it ripen naturally under the sun until it becomes red.  Whereas more robust fruits such as pears, peaches and apples might take longer to develop and will only be ready to be harvested by or later in August. You will be able to tell when fruits are ripe due to the colour, texture and how easily you can pick them off the plant. If the fruit doesn’t come off the plant with ease, they are not ready to eat. Sometimes the tree drops the ripe fruit to the floor all on its own. It is considered polite to share some with your wild animals visiting your yard 🙂

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Preserving fruit

Fruits like berries could come in abundance. One of my favorite way to preserve these sweet gifts of nature is to simply freeze them. When I collected wild cherries or mulberries, after washing them, I simply put them in zip lock bags and froze them. They were the perfect addition to smoothies and served as an ideal filling for Autumn and Winter style pies, and cobblers. 

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Keeping trees healthy

It is always important to look and attend for your plant life if the garden if you care about your fruit trees and want them to thrive over the years. Please check on them daily, especially under their leaves, trunk, and mulch to keep them happy throughout their lives. Each species of the tree needs a different level of care, so it is always worth contacting a tree service, a local library, master gardener extension office or trusted web resources, for the proper plant zoning and professional gardening advice. After last Winter, many of my poor fruit trees and spruces were negatively affected. Even the Norfolk Pine, that I dearly love was dropping needles. I sprayed organic neem oil to no avail. Finally, after contacting an established tree service professional, the trees were diagnosed with fungal elements. The tree professional looked under the magnifying glass and diagnosed trees with the unexpected fungal disorder. After injecting them with an antifungal treatment, just like the medical professional would do, the trees were expected to recover in a month and a half or so. That procedure alone saved my furry tree friends. Losing our beloved mango tree to frost was hard enough to experience and process. It would be too devastating to go through more plant loses, particularly for me. My sprays of oil, I am sure helped out, but I am ecstatic that I resorted to a professional tree service advice. Now my 30 feet tall Pines are soaring up to the blue sky, just like they were originally intending on doing. 

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Make it a very green day, my dear friends.

Luda@PlantsandBeyond🌿

Photographs listed here do not belong to Luda @PlantsandBeyond.com

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Published by PlantsandBeyond

Green Plants Based Living and Gardening

43 thoughts on “Harvesting Fruits From Your Garden”

  4. I enjoyed reading your latest post on plant care as it relates to harvesting. Sharing fruits with wild animals causes somme concern with me. Squirrels go into our hazelnut tree and take down the nuts before they get ripe. For that reason the squirrels as cute as they are are not very popular in our garden.

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    1. Lol – I get it, Peter. They teach us in master gardening classes to grow enough produce to share with wild life ;))) I find it correct – when I had abundance of fruits ( avocados ) , mangos were not ticked at all . Fallen mangoes were eaten by armadillos and squirrels , but no other veggies. Or mulberry’s – raccoons and squirrels were all over it , but not my veggie/ tomato garden It’s really is interesting ..

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      1. For many problems in our garden there are solutions. When deer started to devastate our vegetable patches, I built a fence around the garden and the problem was solved. But with squirrels in the nut trees (walnut and hazelnut) I have not found a good solution yet.

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    1. Thank you so much for your comment, Debbie. So nice meeting you here – dogs help a lot with wild life – they scare squirrels away – also, a fenced in garden is a big help . The moment we fenced ours , all the critters stoped visiting 🌿☀️🌷☀️🌿 hope that helps

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      1. Thank you for the advice. Our property is fenced but that hasn’t deterred the squirrels. They only go after my tomatoes. I have dragon fruit which is ripening now, so far the squirrels haven’t touched it.

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  16. Oh Yes… Now is the time for harvesting.. We picked our apples the other day.. And we are picking our autumn raspberries now and blackberries..
    Loved your post Luda.. Always a mind of information, and great photo shares..
    Love and Big hugs ❤

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