Gardening retailer and compost technology innovator Vego Garden (@vego_garden) showed the produce pickers of Instagram a pepper hack in a new Reel featuring Lannie Armstrong (@gingerfootgarden). It could change how you harvest your home garden forever.
The scoop
Armstrong narrates the video, showing her process of harvesting peppers. She takes a few peppers off the plant before they become fully ripe. While this doesn't sound like the intuitive thing to do, it yields a lot of benefits.
When the pepper is at its blushing stage, or the moment it changes color, it has what it needs to continue developing. The picked peppers usually finish ripening by themselves in a few days.
Once the other peppers reach a decent size, it's usually a sign they're ready. Picking a few peppers early lets the plant devote more resources to other fruits on the vine, allowing them to develop healthily and quickly. Additionally, this method could produce more flowers, and the extra nutrients available could be dedicated to making the plant more productive.
So you don't have to feel guilty picking peppers a few days early. Instead, you can be excited you were able to nab wonderful peppers before excess sun damage or pests got to them first.
How it's helping
Gardening is one of the best ways to save money, especially with grocery prices in a constant state of flux. If you spend $70 to grow your own food, you could get $600 of yield in return. Every meal is more gratifying when the produce is grown with care.
Research also shows fresh, homegrown produce generally tastes better, anyway. This boost in emotional morale is one of the many mental health benefits plant growers experience daily.
Growing your own food also helps the planet. Sustainable gardening can reduce food waste, lessening the production of planet-warming gases like methane. Having food at home also minimizes transportation required to ship heavy produce to grocery stores worldwide, eliminating another source of pollution.
Furthermore, it makes the ground more resilient to severe weather, like heavy rain and winds, per the University of Maryland Extension.
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What everyone's saying
The comments were a mixture of appreciation and even more plant-care tips.
"I'm still trying to get this art," someone mentioned, which was responded to with gentle reminders about how gardening is a perpetual learning process.
Someone else shared more wisdom, saying, "Kinda makes me sad seeing you rip them off rather than cut them off. You can damage your plant that way."
Armstrong responded by saying, "That's a good point!"
"Such a good tip!" another commenter said, while another wrote, "Thanks for the info!"
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