“Cut and Come Again” vegetables: Swiss Chard, Lettuce
What are “cut and come again” plants? When we typically think about growing gardens, we think about seasons. We grow cool-season plants, like beets, carrots, lettuce, and kale, in the Fall and warm-season plants, like bok choy, chives, tomatoes, herbs, purslane, and scallions. Farms grow large expanses of one crop to harvest one time. Smaller gardens have the advantage of a caretaker, gardener, who can or needs to harvest on a daily or weekly basis.
Growing edibles that supply enough food throughout the growing season is optimum without the need to replant. Harvesting edible vegetables and flowers allow gardeners to pick and choose to eat it at the perfect time, and allow the vegetable to keep growing, so you can eat fresh produce all season long.
Benefits to having a “Cut and Come Again” garden includes, reducing waste. You pick and cut what you want to eat when it’s freshest, leaving the rest to grow again for a future meal. If you don’t have the space to grow a lot of vegetables, or can and store vegetables, cutting just what you can eat, will reduce waste.
You can save money by not buying new plants or reseeding to extend your season. Your plants are already growing, no need to wait for it to have roots and become established. Plants can produce more leaves, flowers, or fruit in a smaller area.
And it slows bolting. Cool-weather crops, such as lettuce, spinach, broccoli, kale, some herbs, and even some flowers such as pansies and violas tend to bolt in hot weather—going to seed by putting out flower stems before harvest. Plants that bolt typically develop a bitter taste. Harvesting regularly can postpone bolting. Furthermore, taking the outer leaves of leafy plants like lettuce and spinach prevents them from maturing, ensuring continued vigorous growth.
It also keeps most of your garden plants healthier and more robust by cutting it for your meals. Harvesting the older leaves also reduces susceptibility to disease and pests. Removing the mature leaves helps keep the plant healthy.
So, how do you cut and come again? Keep an eye on how many leaves you have growing and where they are on the plant. You can cut as many of the larger, older leaves as you need, but leave the younger, brighter, smaller leaves to continue to grow. Trim the leaves down towards the base of the plant. Be gentle so you don’t break or bruise the new growth. Once you cut the older leaves, the plant will force more effort into growing those smaller leaves.
Whenever using tools in the garden, please make sure they are sharpened and sterilized to prevent disease and bruising.
Cut 2 to 4 inches of leaf just above a leaf node or a pair of leaves by using shears or your fingers to snap them off. Don’t cut all the foliage so the plant can continue to go through photosynthesis and only remove one third of the plant. Removing more than this will cause stress and possibly death.
Not all vegetable varieties are conducive to “cut and come again.” Keep an eye and (a tongue) to see how your vegetables are doing. Some plants can get bitter as they age or may decline after cutting. These plant varieties can differ by regions, weather, and zone.
As with cutting flowers for floral displays, and herbs for cooking, cutting your edibles in the morning helps plants stay their freshest till time for dinner. Placing your harvest in cool water will help hydrate them so they don’t dry out before use.
Arugula
Asparagus
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Celery
Chinese Cabbage
Chives
Dandelion
Daylilies
Endive
Fiddlehead Ferns
Herbs
Kale
Lettuce
Mustard Spinach
Nasturtium
Purslane
Radicchio
Rhubarb
Sorrel
Spinach
Spring Onions
Swiss Chard
*Greens: Beetroot, Carrot, Collard, Mustard, Turnip.
Landscape expert Teresa Watkins answers gardening questions on Florida’s most popular garden radio show, Better Lawns and Gardens. Listen every Saturday from 7am - 9am EST on WFLA- Orlando, iHeart radio, and wherever you listen to podcasts. https://bit.ly/3c1f5x7