- Hi there!

Welcome back to my garden, and welcome back to Let's Grow Stuff .

My name is Qwantese, and today, we're at Troy Community Gardens, and I wanna show you how to maximize your harvest with one simple technique, called the cut and come again method.

You ready?

Let's grow stuff.

[upbeat electronic music] This method saves on your time and money.

This one plant becomes the gift that keeps on giving all season long.

So what does it even mean to cut and come again?

For some vegetables, pruning works really well.

You can just snap or pluck away the leaves that are mature and then leave the younger ones behind so they can continue to grow and you can harvest them later.

This pruning method works great for my kale, collards, and parsley.

The other way to practice cut and come again is to literally cut the plant.

The works great for loose leaf lettuce varieties and herbs.

Loosely grab the part that you wanna eat and cut it straight across with clean scissors or a knife.

Cut about an inch above the crown, which is the central part of your plant.

[snipping] After harvest, your plant will continue to grow from its crown and will be ready for another harvest in no time.

With veggies like lettuce, keep in mind, you can cut and keep coming again for about three to four harvests before you notice that the quality goes down.

If you see that the vegetable is growing slower or producing bitter leaves, that's a sign it's all tapped out.

Well, that's all I have for today.

Thanks for visiting me in my garden, and I hope you come again.

Get it?

Until next time, there's more to learn at pbswisconsin.org/letsgrowstuff.

See ya!

- Announcer: Funding for Let's Grow Stuff is provided by Ganshert Nursery & Lanscapes, the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs, and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.