After planting, watering, and nurturing your fruits and vegetables, you’ll soon be pleased to see harvests coming thick and fast. However, do you know when it is the perfect time to harvest your crops?
Here are a few tips to tell when your fruits and vegetables are ready. You’ll want to pick or pull your homegrown, organic produce at its prime:
Tomatoes
Look for a nice, even color over the entire fruit. Then, try tugging gently on the fruit. A ripe tomato will come off in your hand easily. Of course, a tomato this ripe will have to be eaten or preserved soon.
Cucumbers
Traditional cucumbers are ready when there is no pronounced point at the tip. For snacking cucumbers pick them small. If you want to slice them, you can grow them a bit longer (up to 6”). If they turn yellow, you have waited too long. If you want to pickle them, you can pick them at 2”. However, Lemon cucumbers will turn bright yellow when they are ready.
Peppers
Pick peppers when they are the desired color (good even color over the entire pepper). Don’t wait for your peppers to get the size of the ones in the grocery store. They will unlikely get that big!
Summer squash
You can harvest summer squash (like zucchini and crookneck) when they reach about four to eight inches long. The bigger fruits are edible (stuffed and baked), but the small fruit can be eaten without cooking. Oh, and don’t forget, you can eat the flowers too! (look up squash blossom recipes; my go-to is Squash Blossoms Quesadillas)!
Winter squash
In late autumn, when the stem has died off and hardened, use the fingernail test. Scratch the skin with your fingernail. It is not ready to pick if the skin is soft and breaks. If it is hard, the fruit can be harvested. Leave pumpkins on the vine until the vine dies.
Okra
Okra is like summer squash, you need to eat it when it is small, but unlike the squash, you can’t wait and let it get much bigger. You will only know for sure unless you squeeze it. If it is still soft, it is good. If it is hard, you need to pick it so the plant will keep producing, but you probably should throw it in the compost bin.
Cantaloupes
A ripe cantaloupe is quite fragrant, even while it is still on the vine. It won’t show any green. Also, it will “slip,” meaning it will fall right off the vine if you gently roll it.
Watermelons
Watermelons are one of the most difficult to tell when at their prime. There is the thumping technique that says that a dull sound when you knock on it means it is ripe. Another method is to look at the underside. If it is yellow, it is ripe. The tendril technique is to look at the 3 tendrils on the vine closest to the fruit (going toward the vine’s root, not the growing tip). If they are dried up and brittle, the fruit is ripe.
Eggplants
Eggplants should be shiny, and the flesh should spring back when pressed lightly. If they have started to get dull, you waited too long. For eggplants, size doesn’t matter.
Sweet Corn
Harvest corn when the silk tassels at the ends of the cobs are dry and brown and when the fluid in the kernel is milky, not clear. Peel back the husk and poke the kernel. If it exudes a milky liquid, it’s ready to pick. If it is clear, it isn’t ready. Try to put the husk back as it was, as this helps protect it from pests.
Green beans
Green beans are best before there isn’t any swelling of the individual seeds. Climbing beans should be long and smooth, without beans bulging inside. If you wait too long, they will be stringy, and the plants will become less productive.
Peas and beans
Feel the pods to determine the size of the developing peas. Then shell a few to double-check. This method also applies to beans like fava, pinto, or other beans where you are not eating the shell but only the bean itself.
Broccoli
Broccoli will produce one large central head. Pick it when it is 4–6 inches across. Then you’ll get lots of smaller heads growing up on side stalks. Pick before the heads flower yellow.
Cabbage
You should cut cabbages as soon as the fleshy leaves have formed a tight, firm head. Winter frosts will even enrich the flavor of savory types, so leave these in the ground until you’re ready to eat them.
Cauliflower
You should pick before the head turns yellow and splits up (still tightly closed).
Root Crops
With root vegetables, it is about the size. Beets and turnips can be pulled from golf ball size up. The smaller sizes are quite tender. They are likely to become tough if allowed to grow larger than a tennis ball. Feel radishes, carrots, beets, and potatoes underground, or sample them to see if they are the size you want. You can leave your carrots in the ground until you can use them. Parsnips can be used after the leaves have died back, but are sweetest right after the first frost (which improves the flavor).
Potatoes
The earliest potatoes can be harvested about 10 to 12 weeks after planting when the plants come into flower. They are good once they reach the size of a hen’s egg. However, maincrop potatoes for storage should be harvested only after all the foliage has died back (around 20 weeks after planting). Check by rubbing the skin with your thumb. If the skin doesn’t rub off, they are ready to harvest.
Garlic, Onions, and Shallots
Dig up garlic, onions, and shallots when the foliage dies down in late summer (to use fresh). For storing, though, wait two weeks after the foliage has turned yellow and toppled over, then dig up the bulbs and cure them for storing in a cool, dry place.
Lettuce or salad leaves
Loose leaves of cut-and-come-again salads (lettuces, spinaches, etc.) are best enjoyed while still young and tender. Those heart-forming lettuces should be cut as soon as the heart has begun to firm up. In all cases, for the most succulent salad leaves, pick them early in the morning.
Enjoy your harvest!