Knowing When to Harvest Your Vegetables ~ day2day Tips ~ GreenThumb Thursday

It's September!  The days are getting shorter and the nights are feeling colder.  Autumn is just around the corner and the garden is in full bloom.  But knowing when exactly is the perfect time to harvest your vegetable bounty can be a little tricky.  Have no fear SuperMom's!  I found an easy-to-read (and understand) USDA Planting & Harvest Calendar specific to your region!

Vegetable Planting/Harvest Guide Zone 8

What I like about this Calendar is it shows when and what can be started indoors, when to plant outdoors as well as when to harvest all with a simple color-coded bar graph.  Notice the white background bordering the green color in the middle?  That represents the frost and frost free times for my zone, zone 8.  Don't live in Zone 8?  Don't worry.  Veggie Harvest has a Zone Calendar for your particular hardiness zone.  Don't know what zone you live in?  They've got that covered too!  Just click on the Harvest Calendar picture above and you'll find a box where you can enter your zip code to find out your gardens hardiness.

If you are looking for specific details on what your veggies will look like come harvest time check out the 42 vegetables listed from The Old Farmer's Almanac in their Ripeness Guide.

The Old Farmer's Almanac

You spent months cultivating, nurturing and watering your garden.  And now that you know when you can enjoy & taste the fruits of you labor you should take a few minutes and save your seeds, especially if you planted some wonderful heirloom varieties.  It only takes 6 simple steps to save those veggie seeds like your tomatoes, peppers and squash!

Save Your Tomato Seeds 

Happy harvesting everyone!  What was your biggest bounty this year?  Did you plant anything new this season?  =)