Do Not Pick Greens, Leaves off Leafy Vegetable Plants Until They are Fully Grown
by Sabrina Dawkins
Do not start picking your green leafy vegetables until they are mature. Years ago while browsing YouTube, I heard John on his YouTube channel Learn Organic Gardening at GrowingYourGreens say that you should only pick maybe one leaf off a collard plant at a time. And he had big, healthy, dark green leaves. But it sounded unrealistic to me at the time because I thought only people who gardened as a hobby could afford to wait and only pick one leaf off collard plants at a time. And when spring hit this year and I wanted to minimize my grocery store visits as quickly as possible, I started picking from collard greens plants while they were still small. So as soon as I had transplanted the plants from the pots to the garden and they started producing new leaves, I would pick them off to increase the stretches of time between grocery store visits. Yes, I would leave two or three small leaves on the plant, but I definitely wouldn’t stop at just picking one leaf.
The problem was that the plants would not grow to full size. Instead, they remained small. I assumed the growth was stunted because I had spread too many seeds in one starter pot and the growing plants had become overcrowded and permanently stunted. So it didn’t matter that I had transplanted the seedlings into the garden—they would never grow to full size.
But then I remembered what I had heard John say years ago. At the time I thought, “Well, he has the luxury to wait. I, on the other hand, depend on these crops completely to feed myself, so I can’t wait. I have to pick them as soon as I see leaves.” So I brushed it off then. And this year I just thought that cucumbers and okra were highly successful crops in my garden, but collards weren’t for some reason. However, in late summer, I started planting Swiss chard, and the same thing happened: I would pick the leaves maybe a week or two after I’d transplanted the crops into the garden because I didn’t have time to wait. Cucumber production was slowing down, and I didn’t want to have to go to the grocery store; but the plants were not growing to full size. Then I realized I was doing something wrong.
In years past I hadn’t relied entirely on my garden for vegetables, so I would give the plants more time to grow and develop before picking them. But this year, I wanted to break off the leaves as soon as possible, especially when cucumber production slowed down, to keep from having to go to the grocery store. And that was what was preventing the collards from growing big. The leaves remained approximately the same size as when I first transplanted them, and neither the collards nor the Swiss chard started growing to full size until I left them alone.
Now I am growing big, healthy leaves on the Swiss chard planted in late summer and the collard greens planted in early spring of this year. Both plants also get water and a little bit of nitrogen (urine) diluted with water regularly—about a cup per gallon of water. I will no longer try to pick as many leaves off my plants as possible, leaving them only two or three small leaves. Instead, I will wait until my plants have grown to full size—Google Images shows pictures of what the full-size plants should look like—and then pick only one leaf or so at a time off full-grown leafy vegetable plants and celery, never leaving the plants with only new baby leaves or small celery ribs.