Autumn Tips for Harvest Time

It's harvest time and many city gardeners couldn't keep up with the abundance of vegetables this summer, given the excellent conditions. Now that the season is over, the question naturally arises as to what to do with wilted plants and their associated plant containers. This is exactly what this blog post at the beginning of autumn will cover:

• What do I do with harvested plants?
• Can I let unripe fruit ripen?
• What do I do with the used soil?

1. What do I do with harvested plants?

2. Can I let unripe fruit ripen?

Certain vegetables, such as tomatoes, can be easily ripened even after they have been harvested or when they fall off. The best way to do this is to wrap them in some newspaper and place them in a dark place with a few apples or bananas. The ethylene released by the bananas and apples will cause your fruit to continue ripening even after harvesting.

Be careful : this trick doesn't work with every vegetable! Certain varieties like chillies, cucumbers, mountain eggplant and Andean berries cannot be ripened after harvesting. So you should wait until the fruit is ripe before harvesting it.

3. What do I do with the used soil?

Basically, it is recommended to enrich the substrate in plant pots with at least half of fresh soil (e.g. Boum plant soil) the following year in order to provide the plants with sufficient nutrients. So you can either leave some of the soil in the pots over the winter and enrich it with fresh soil next year, or you can dispose of it completely now and start again with fresh soil next year! You can find out more here in our article on improving balcony soil.

We hope you have fun using and enjoying your harvest!