When to harvest greens

Agathaade

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Okay, I have another question about greens.

I am a newbie garderner. I started growing greens about two months ago in preparation for our tortoise’s arrival. A baby Greek, will be here in two weeks.
I grow chicory, plantain, dandelion, wild strawberries and nasturtium and am wondering if they need to be harvested at some point, or if I can just pluck a leaf at a time indefinitely.
I’m a bit confused about that aspect. I have chicory plants that have leaves about a foot tall and look mature. Are they going to wilt if I don’t harvest them by winter?
I am in Southern California for what it’s worth.

The nasturtium is the only plant that I know for a fact is an annual so I know that one will wilt in the fall at some point, wondering what happens with the others.

Including a photo of a few of my plants with my hand for scale. Sorry it’s on its side. This chicory is super droopy today...


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RosemaryDW

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Welcome!

I am also in Southern California.

You can pluck a leaf at a time of nasturtiums. My grown Russian needs to put a foot or some weight on the stem of a nasturtium to get at the leaves; they are flat so otherwise she can’t really get them off the ground to take a bite. So I feed the biggest leaves on their own stem or, more often, give her a small branch with multiple leaves. You’ve got a baby so seems like some trial and error will be needed.

Your chicories and dandelions are annuals and close relatives; you can also pick these one leaf at a time. They will grow quite well with water but will go to seed in the heat eventually. Dandelion will reseed on its own if undisturbed (they need sun to sprout so you don’t want to really bury them).

Wild strawberries, hmm. They live year round in my climate but don’t do much growing in the winter. I suppose you could feed one leaf at a time so long as you are careful not to pull up an entire runner with it. (Our Russian eats these plants to the ground if they aren’t caged so I can’t say we’ve ever tried feeding a single leaf.)

We don’t have any grass in the yard, thus no normal space for plantain to grow so I can’t speak to it.
 

Tom

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I agree with Rosemary. Many ways to do it. I think trimming leaves and allowing them to grow back is the most productive way to go, vs. harvesting a whole plant.
 

Agathaade

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Thank you @RosemaryDW, that’s very helpful. I wasn’t sure whether dandelions and chicory were annuals or not.
I grow my plantain in pots btw, it grows slowly but it grows.
 

RosemaryDW

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Tom has plantain in a raised bed that grows great in season. It’s huge though; lots of room to grow with great sun and water. I don’t think the rest of us can compare. Then again he raises big ones for a living and you’ve got one baby. Southern California is a great place to feed a testudo tortoise even if you don’t have yard space. You can buy cactus at the Mexican grocery store; lots of things at a Korean grocery. We have Persian and Chinese markets. Plenty of things at Whole Foods if you’re rich! Lots of choices.
 

Agathaade

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A fancy whole foods tortoise my tortoise will not be ;) but I understand people who shop there if they can though.

Thank you for suggesting the asian, latino and persian local markets.
I was lucky to find a few broken opuntia pads on our sidewalk that I rooted, they are now making fresh pads.
I hope I can feed the tortoise entirely from my garden, but let’s say that’s the ideal goal, and working towards it is what’s fun. We’ll see where I get to. For now I have learned the names of many pests, marveled at how they found my tiny yard IMMEDIATELY, and I manually remove most pests (eggs under leaves, caterpillars, aphids, tarnished plant bug) every morning!

I can see that the challenge will be generating a rolling supply of food throughout the year. I’m waiting to see how certain plants behave later in the fall and winter. I am sure your market recommendations will come in handy!
 

RosemaryDW

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It’s fun to learn. I could theoretically let our grown Russian feed herself entirely from our yard but it’s tiny and she’s a monster so we supplement quite a bit. Weeds in the spring and then a bunch of amazing stuff from our farmers market; several stalls that focus on Asian and Indian foods.

It will be interesting to see how much a little one eats.
 
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