How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables

Pot-grown vegetables do not require as much looking after than a large vegetable plot but you still need to look after it carefully in order to get great harvests. As, grown the right way, pot-grown vegetables produce astonishing crops!

How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables

Care for all vegetables
Water as soon as the soil starts drying on the surface and before foliage starts withering. Indeed the lack of water is the first reason for a bad crop and this for a traditional vegetable plot as well as a pot-grown one. How about installing an automatic watering-system? May be its worth thinking about it: it is still the right moment.

How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
Water before the plants get thirsty.
How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
This small turnip is the proof that you can get crops even in a tiny pot!
How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
Pot-grown cabbages.

Fertilize gradually. Vegetables are plants which need nutritional soil, but in pot, it is not enough. Fertilisers are essential. Soluble fertilisers are the most effective but they are not bio. Organic fertilisers (bio) do not act quickly: you must choose between the two…

Pull out the plants which will no longer produce: frail plants or plants which have gone to seeds early will no longer produce crops and take up useful space. Remove them and plant something else in their place. In order to harvest a maximum of vegetables, use the maximum available space.

Prepare autumn in planting plants such as Kale which grows slowly. Sow also some big-roots vegetables like beetroots.

How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
Fertilize tomatoes regularly.

Tomatoes
Carry on supplying them with fertiliser as without food, the plants will not produce a lot of fruits. An organo-mineral fertiliser to bury a few centimetres deep is ideal: it feeds the plants quickly and for several weeks. A liquid fertiliser acts rapidly but it must be carefully measured as an overdose can lead to the leaves’ extremities burning.

Pinch out the side shoots which appear where the leaf stalk join the stem, to only leave the main stem and 2 fruits bunches (3 if it is a small fruiting variety, 4 to 5 if it is a cherry-tomato variety). Too many leaves and the plant will not produce as many fruits.

Salads
Harvest as soon as the heart starts going up (bolt) and this, whatever its size. Cut right back to encourage a regrowth and a second, small but easy to get harvest. Think also about renewing the plants, approximately every 4 weeks. Do not supply with fertilizer.

How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
If it starts bolting, you must cut!
How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
Replant salads each month.
How to harvest a maximum of pot-grown vegetables
Courgettes also need regular fertilizing when pot-grown.

Marrows
Limit the number of fruits on the pumpkins to 2 at a maximum: a pot-grown plant cannot produce more. Remove the female flowers beyond this number (they have a swollen part at their base), or simply remove all the flowers as soon as two fruits have reached the size of an orange. Courgettes (zucchini) are to be harvested as and when ripe and do not need to have their flowers removed. Do not forget that their flowers are delicious in fritter!

M. Jean-Michel GROULT
Pépinières PLANFOR
1950 Route de Cère
40090 UCHACQ - FRANCE
Tel : (020).7660.0178