Harvesting VeggiesWhen I first started growing vegetables, I was confused at harvest time because I didn’t know just when to pick my veggies. I discovered I’m not alone. For many novice gardeners, our only knowledge of what ripe fruits and vegetables look like comes from the grocery store. Yet, when we begin to grow our own produce, it rarely looks like the blemish-free, polished and waxed fruit and vegetables at the store.
Here are some tips on how to harvest three popular homegrown goodies at the peak of their ripeness and flavor. Tomatoes Nothing can compare with a homegrown tomato. After one season of growing your own, you may never want to buy a tomato in the store again. Store-bought tomatoes can often be almost tasteless because they are often picked while they’re still green, and then sprayed with ethylene gas to force artificial ripening. The picking, transporting and storage process prevents natural ripening and sugar accumulation. Tomatoes undergo a very interesting physiological change when they are about half pinkish-red and half green. At this “breaker” stage, they form a thin layer of cells that seals the fruit from the stem. This layer of cells prevents any nutrient flow from the plant to the fruit. Tomatoes can be harvested at or after the breaker stage and they will ripen normally, but they need to ripen in the sun, such as on a windowsill, for the sugars to fully develop. Tomatoes that are left on the vine continue to ripen and develop sugars because they are exposed to sunlight, not because they are gaining anything from the plant. Store freshly harvested tomatoes on the counter or in a basket, as refrigeration kills their flavor. Some tomatoes, such as green zebra, German grapefruit, and lemon boy, never turn red. So, be sure to save your seed packets or plant tags, as these will often have pictures of the ripe fruit that you can refer to when deciding if it’s time to harvest. Eggplant Generally, eggplant should be harvested when the flesh is springy, and the skin is shiny purple and tight. Test for springiness by pressing into the side with your finger. If the flesh springs back, the eggplant is ready for picking. Eggplants that are past their prime are dull and soft with wrinkled skin. When ripe, white-skinned eggplant, such as Rosa Bianca, will have skin that is glossy white with pink stripes. Melons When trying to determine a melon’s ripeness, look at the condition of the stem and skin color. Cantaloupes “slip” from the vine, leaving a scar where the stem was attached. The bottom, or end opposite the stem, will be soft and fragrant. Their straw-colored skin should be bright. A ripe honeydew may remain attached to the vine, but should also be soft on the bottom side, opposite the stem. While on the vine, watermelons will have a small, curled tendril extending from the vine opposite from where the stem is attached to the vine. This tendril will turn brown and dry out when the melon is ripe. The stem should still be green and difficult to remove from the vine. The skin touching the ground should be buttery yellow. All melons continue to ripen after they have been removed from the vine, and should be stored in the refrigerator or a cool place. This is a reprint of an article I wrote when I was the commercial horticulture program coordinator for the western area of University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. For more specific gardening and horticulture advice be sure to visit your local Cooperative Extension office.
0 Comments
In September we are doing a BTWB Fitness-Level-Up Challenge. For the entire month I have programmed workouts that count directly towards the 8 Fitness Level Categories:
I have blogged previously about how BTWB calculates your Fitness Level. Your Fitness Level compares you against ALL the other BTWB members irrespective of your age. Sometimes, I see some of us get a bit wrapped around the axle about our Fitness Level numbers. I want to remind you that we live in a BUBBLE of incredible fitness. How many of your co-workers, friends, and family members are as fit as you? Right, we're in a fitness bubble! To put things in perspective I'm sharing a recent podcast from BTWB on the average times and loads for the most popular workouts & lifts like Fran, DT, Cindy, 1RM Squat, Deadlift, Snatch, Clean 7 Jerk, Murph & much more. So grab a protein shake and enjoy Adrian Bozman, BOZ, the director of CrossFit Games, and Pat Sherwood, creator of CrossFit Linchpin, as they discuss some cool stats on some of the amazing things you all do everyday in the gym. STAYING CURRENT & GROUNDED WITH FITNESS LEVELIn about 2 weeks we will begin our September Fitness Level-Up Challenge. This is a fun challenge that might transform your motivation and commitment to your fitness. For the entire month of September we will be doing workouts that count towards the 8 categories of the BTWB Fitness Level. In order for the workout to count towards a FL it must be completed as Rx'd. If you do it scaled, great! It won't impact your Fitness Level. Your Overall Fitness Level is a relative measure of Fitness, meaning it compares your performance to the rest of the community. A Fitness Level of 77 means you are more Fit than roughly 77% of the community. As athletes everywhere continue to improve, it will become harder and harder to stay in front of the curve. It's important to remember that your Fitness Level is a tool and not an absolute measure of your current fitness. Here's a very helpful blog from the smart folks at BTWB on staying grounded in your Fitness Level and not getting wrapped around the axle about your numbers. "A world-record mile. A half court shot to win a million bucks. A hit single that rules the airwaves for a month or two. Society has become more and more obsessed with the rare and extraordinary, celebrating and venerating the “once-in-a-lifetime” moment over the slow and steady grind of dogged hard work and incremental progress. Seen through this lens, greatness becomes a montage of single-frame snapshots instead of long form cinema verite. CrossFitters are not immune to this type of thinking. We celebrate PR’ed lifts and WODs, then cling to the numbers as though they are immutable testaments to our continued performance. This is partially attributable to CrossFit’s complicated balance between training and sport. Singular numbers matter during competition, as they may be the difference between a win and a loss. They matter psychologically, as the tangible and obvious payoff from long hours of toil and sacrifice. However, confusing PRs with overall fitness, or becoming too reliant or attached to them, is folly. Consider this statement: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” —Aristotle Aristotle was the philosopher’s equivalent of a CrossFit athlete, writing authoritatively on physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, and government. His generalist approach is echoed in that statement: true excellence is the sum total of constantly and consistently repeated action, not a one-time outlier. Let this inform your training and factor it into how you plan lifts and cycles and approach workouts. While a big snatch PR is certainly cause for celebration (doubly so and especially during competition) it is not the most important or descriptive indicator of your lifting prowess or overall fitness. What can you snatch reliably, every time? What can you snatch when you’re tired, sore, or haven’t eaten enough? What can you snatch after a 400m run, or before jumping on the bar for a set of pull-ups? What number would you guarantee you can snatch with your life savings on the line? This thinking applies to Benchmark WODs as well. I know I’m personally guilty of clinging to certain WOD PRs that I haven’t retested in over a year, even bragging (or worse, humblebragging) about them a bit. While this behavior is somewhat natural and human, it also kind of sucks. What good is my “Fran” time from a year ago, under perfect conditions, with a friend supplying motivation and helping me stick to a strategy? Shouldn’t I be as proud of a “Fran” done 30 seconds slower, alone, with no music? I submit that we should focus less on our PRs, and more on numbers we “own.” To operationally define “own,” I mean a weight, time, or score that we can hit 9 times out of 10. I know a CFSBK member who has recorded the exact same “Annie” time three times in a row (and it’s a good one!). He can confidently say that he owns his “Annie” time. Likewise, if you’ve squatted your PR multiple times over a fairly broad time spectrum, you own that weight. Let’s focus on what we consistently own, not what we grasp for a fleeting moment. This is especially important when we use 1RM numbers as the basis for planning a cycle of lifts—don’t use your squat 1RM from when you were a college linebacker if you’re currently a 45-year-old computer programmer. FITNESS LEVEL AND STAYING HONESTCrossFit btwb’s proprietary metric “Fitness Level” was created for just this reason- to make sure that we have an easily understandable snapshot of our fitness that is both comprehensive but also current. Fitness Level takes your best numbers in Benchmark WODs, lifts, endurance pieces, and more, across 8 categories, and compares them against the hundreds of thousands of results in the system, assigning you a percentile score for your efforts. Only your best efforts are taken into account (to control for purposefully sub-maximal efforts during training cycles) but most importantly there is a 6-month expiration date on any one data point being used. That way, you can be certain that the Fitness Level the app is displaying is an accurate portrayal of your fitness right now, not that one gloriously lucky time you somehow loaded the bar wrong and PR’d your snatch by 40 pounds.
Remember, our fitness is rented, not owned. Much like your apartment or car (or even your phone in this strange new world) it requires that you keep making consistent payments. I challenge you not to see that as a negative, but instead as the very reason we do what we do in the gym (and in life more broadly). Train hard, stay humble & current, and let CrossFit BTWB do some of the heavy lifting (pun intended) to help you along the way!" Time to Close Out the Re Open!We hope you have enjoyed repeated the CrossFit Open workouts for our REOPEN! Today we are doing 22.1 for our backwards and upside down ReOpen. The inspiration for this cam from the Upside Down World from Stranger Things. I thought it would be fun to do the open backwards, 22.3, 22.2, 22.1 and upside down. So what makes this an upside down REOPEN? If you're repeating workouts, I challenge you to try a different category. Last year, when I did the REOPEN I repeated all of the workouts Scaled since I had done them Prescribed during the Open. If you did the Foundations category, try Scaled. If you did the Scaled category, try Prescribed. If you did Scaled try Masters Rx. Share with us in the comments if you think this upside down ReOpen is easier or harder than they way you did it in the spring. |
Special EventsRecord your WOD on Beyond the Whiteboard.
Do you need CrossFit or yoga gear? Click on the links below to buy through our GORUCK, Reebok, Rogue or Affiliate share sale programs. These are affiliate links and our gym will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links.
Check out our Flickr page!
Categories
All
Archives
April 2024
|