It's Okay to Pull Plants That Aren't Performing Well
There are bumper crop years, and then there are years where your production is just so-so. Unfortunately, the sugar snap peas that I planted back in March have not done very well, so I’m saying "peas and thank you" to them and pulling them from the garden to make room for something else.
Here are the three steps to removing plants organically from your garden to preserve the nutrients in the soil.
Step One: Harvest as much as possible
Before you remove your plant, take whatever you can still eat. I remove any peas and softer tendrils from my vines before I pull them down. These peas are mange tout, which means the whole thing is edible. I fell in love with sautéed pea shoots when I lived in China for a bit after college. The pea shoots at the top of the plant will be tender and delicious, but the lower you get on the plant, the more fibrous they tend to be (so those might go in my composter). One thing that hooked me on gardening is that even when you’ve failed at something, you can usually still eat parts of the plant.
If you’re interested in saving seeds, you would want to leave some fruit on the plant and let it die completely. You only want to take seeds, however, from the healthiest plants, ones that have performed really well in your garden. You can probably guess, I’m not going to save any seeds from these pea plants.
Step Two: Cut at the base of the plant
I like my pair of Sneeboer pruners for plant removal. I cut right at the base of the plant, leaving the roots in the soil. I can chop the vine into smaller pieces now so that it’ll compost a bit faster, or I can just toss the entire vine into my composter.
Here’s why you want to leave the roots: plants in the Fabaceae family (think beans and peas) fix nitrogen in the soil when they’re growing well. I don’t want to disturb that beneficial process by yanking up the roots. The only reason to pull the roots from the garden would be if there is some kind of disease.
Step Three: Plant something new
Add a little bit of compost to the tops of your bed before sowing seeds or adding new plants. As soon as one thing leaves, it’s time to plant something new, so I’m adding cucumbers and training my tomato vines to climb the trellis where my pea vines were. I can even slide the rope I was using to hold my pea vines in place and repurpose it for my tomatoes.
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Voila! That’s it, my friends! That’s the simplest way to remove a plant from your garden. Whether you’re taking out a disappointing plant or something that’s already completed its life cycle in your garden, I hope you can appreciate all the things plants provide: sometimes that’s food, and sometimes that’s life lessons. Either way, I’m grateful.