Succession Harvesting
I often talk about succession harvesting.... I wanted to share a little bit of why I love it so much.
When you go out to the garden and take a head of lettuce to make a salad with, that head is just about done. Sure, you can leave the roots in, and yes, you may get a little more come up from the main stem, but overall, it won't produce abundantly as if you had only taken a few outer leaves from EACH plant vs taking all of one or two plants.
Taking just a few outer leaves from each plant has so many benefits. This allows the plants to use their energy towards regenerate more leaves, shoots, and buds for a future harvest. Another benefit is that you get a variety of foods to add to your salad (eat the rainbow!) which means you are getting a variety of flavors and nutrients. Succession harvesting also helps to maintain the plants by keeping the lower leaves off the ground and pulling off dead or sad looking leaves so as not to encourage slugs and such, and the plants don't have to spend their energy keeping alive leaves that are full grown and ready to come off.
Here is a picture of our succession harvest today. My goal was to make a nice salad to have alongside dinner. I took a little of this and a little of that and the next thing you know our harvest basket was full of delicious crispy veggies.
As you see, just taking a few from each plant, we have quite the variety. This is important to me because I know we are getting not only fresh, organic, delicious foods, but a big variety of minerals and nutrients. This harvest was more than enough to make two good sized salads for Kaliah and me to enjoy. I topped mine with a little balsamic vinegar, avocado oil, and a pinch of pink salt. It was so delicious, fresh, and full of flavor. Each bite different from the last.
I urge you all to go out there and try succession harvesting for your next harvest salad! Leave me a comment with what your experience is....more flavor? More color? etc.
With lots of love
Kindred Acres
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