What tools do you use to harvest?

I find myself dissatisfied with my haphazard approach to harvesting vegetables. For picking mustards, lettuce, and other one leaf at a time vegetables I've been flipping back and forth between pulling them off with my fingers and using scissors. I wonder though if I might get better results using a sharp knife. Pulling off with my fingers sometimes leaves a jagged leaf base. Scissors can be hard to get down to the base of the leaf.

For nightshades I've been mostly using secateurs (green peppers and eggplants) or picking them off with my fingers (tomatoes).

For cucurbits I think I mostly use secateurs, though I have a pair of harvest scissors on a long pole that I can use for chayote that are out of reach. They have a non-cutting pincer grabber on one side, so theoretically I could hold onto the stem of the fruit and pull it down, but this has not worked with chayote for me. They fall, regardless of the grabber. I tried holding up a bug catching net to catch the fruit, but have not succeeded with that.

For roots I find myself mostly just digging around with my hands, but sometimes using a spade to loosen the soil.

For berries, finger picking seems to be simplest with no real issues.

For tree fruit like persimmons, citrus and ume I have used a ladder and secateurs or the aforementioned long harvest scissors. These methods work well.

For mulberries I have been individually picking, but next season I might try the inverted umbrella and branch shaking method. I hear some people put down sheets and shake, but that's quite a long drop and would definitely damage over-ripe berries. Also I don't have spare sheets to get purple with mulberry juice.

How about you? How do you harvest your various crops?

I have several pocket knives that I keep in various places - jacket pockets, vehicle and storage bins at the community garden and use them for harvesting lettuce leaves, asparagus and silver beet, secateurs for globe artichokes, fingers to snap kale leaves

I have found that a good knife, fingers and a tool like this ( https://homesteadiron.com/products/grub-hoe-hand-forged-garden-tool) worked for everything in my garden. on a side note, I highly reccomend homestead iron for hand forged garden tools

I get some interesting ideas will come out of this discussion.

My number one harvesting "tool" is the thumb nail on the right hand. I purposely leave this fingernail a bit long and cut on an angle so that I can use it as a harvesting knife for leafy greens. I too harvest most leafy greens one leaf at a time. The thumb nail works fine enough for everything but the thicker bok choys. I’m harvesting weekly, so the leaves are quite young. No tough stems. But if I leave a lettuce plant to form a head, then I slice it off above ground level using a box cutter knife.

Scissors work for me harvesting some things……those things that my thumb nail can’t handle.

Tomatoes— the varieties I’m growing are quite easy to pluck. No tools required.

Eggplants, peppers — a twist of the fruit and a snap does the trick for me.

Pumpkins and gourds, usually a bending back + snap motion does it, but if I want to be sure to leave a long handle, then I use a pruning shears in order to leave a long stem for carrying purposes.

Sweet potatoes and peanuts— we are using a fork at the moment. We are not happy with that method. So we want to fashion some sort of subsurface chisel plow thingy to help lift the tubers and soil so that we can go back and harvest by hand. We could drag the subsurface lifter with either the rototiller (without the tines) or an ATV. We will try working on this idea in the future.

Potatoes —- we harvest at 3 months, so the soil hasn’t gotten too hard for using our hands. So we just feel around for the tubers. We miss a few, but they show up when we till in the compost for the next crop.

Herbs — we use our fingers for the ones that we pluck, such as basil, dill, parsley, etc. Those with tougher stems we use scissors, such as oregano, mints, rosemary.

Daikon, carrots, parsnip — most can be harvested by pulling. Sometimes we need to loosen them up a bit. We have a giant old screwdriver that works well. Some sort of small breaker bar would probably work well.

Cucumbers — mostly hand plucked, but sometimes the stem is too tough. I always have one of those snap-blade boxcutters in my pocket and they come in handy for those tough cucumber stems.

Chayote — hand picked. The vines run up a trellis, which actually is a dead tree. I just yank the stem down until the chayote either falls off or it is within reach to grab. Some day I’ll get around to making a bamboo trellis, but I haven’t gotten there yet. That way the chayotes would be within reach just above my head.

Beans and peas — hand plucked

Beets, onions, turnips, rutabagas — hand yanking does the trick

Fruit trees — most trees we have pruned short enough that a hand picking pole is needed only for the higher branches. The 2/3 lower parts of the tree are within hand plucking reach. Quite truthfully, I’m not going to risk running up a ladder to reach a few fruits and risk hurting myself. Around here I know of folks who have broken wrists, ankles, shoulders, arms, collar bones, and cracked their skulls. They torn muscles, ligaments, rotator cuffs. They have permanently injured their backs. Naw, not worth it. Chop the trees shorter! Less fruit, but also less injuries.

Pineapples — a snapping motion does it.

Bananas — we make cuts on the trunk so that it acts as a hinge. With a little persuasion, the weight of the banana bundle slowly lowers itself to the ground without crashing.

I have an old kitchen knife from the thrift store that I use for anything that doesn't snap or tear cleanly or easily.  It's about a 4" long blade. I use it like a sickle for harvesting grain, too. I've used various other tools, depending on the plant - scythe, pruners, etc., but I always come back to my knife.

For roots, I loosen the soil a bit with a trowel, if it needs it, then use my hands.

I also don't put too much energy into getting fruit off branches too high to reach. I pick a lot of apples and pears from an old abandoned homestead. Sometimes I'll drive my truck right up to one of the bigger trees and stand on it to reach higher. That about it, though. There's one apple tree growing wild near our place, probably from a thrown apple core, that has very hard but very flavourful apples. When I brought some to my parents' one time, my mum said, "Oh, they're Russian winter apples." (We have a large doukhobor population here.) Because they're so hard, I just shake the tree (with toque on and hoodie pulled up to protect my head a bit) and pick them off the ground.

I have a couple of pruning shears meant for clipping a rose or pruning a rosemary bush that I also use in the harvest of vegetables.

We also have a carving knife left from when we were building the house that is on a table next to the garden.

Usually, though I just use my hands like twisting a summer squash, tomato or pepper so it comes off.

For greens and herbs and cutting veggies off at the stem - a harvest knife (essentially a small sickle - picture included). So much easier than scissors! Won't work for super hard cucurbit stems at times.

For garlic and potatoes, a spading fork.

For fruits, hand picking at this time.

Our nuts have not matured, but if they ever do, I may consider one of those pickers that you roll on the ground (such as Garden Weasel).

The garden hod (pictured) also helps tremendously.

Tanya White wrote:For greens and herbs and cutting veggies off at the stem - a harvest knife (essentially a small sickle - picture included). So much easier than scissors! Won't work for super hard cucurbit stems at times.
... The garden hod (pictured) also helps tremendously.

Wow, nice lifetime tool. I like it. Where did you get yours? How do you keep it sharp?

Tanya, that is a neat looking knife.

Did you also harvest a caterpillar?

Anne Miller wrote:Tanya, that is a neat looking knife.

Did you also harvest a caterpillar?

What a keen eye you have!

His name is Waldo.

That is a caterpillar indeed! Very easy to grow, we harvest tons of them every year
The knife is from Garrett Wade and I think it is a French company that makes them (Maybe Arno?)
I use a curved water stone for sharpening. It doesn't have to be ultra sharp unlike other tools based on how to use it, so I don't stress over perfection with this particular tool. I've had it for 4 years or so and it's holding up so far.