Our summer is in full swing and
– if you’re growing home vegetables – you’re probably really
reaping the harvests just about now.
Our summer is in full swing and – if you’re growing home vegetables – you’re probably really reaping the harvests just about now.
Everybody knows when tomatoes and strawberries are red, they’re ready to pick, but not all summer vegetables are so cooperative when it comes to knowing when to pick.
Whether it’s tapping a watermelon and listening to its sound or simply waiting for tomatoes to turn red, you’ll want to pick your veggies at peak flavor. After all, you’ve gone through all the hard work of growing them.
The most common mistake novice home gardeners make is waiting too long to harvest, thinking bigger is always better. The golden rule of harvesting should be, “Small is Beautiful.” Not to mention, tasty and tender, too.
By picking early and often, you’ll be encouraging vegetable plants to keep producing. With most vegetables, as long as you keep a plant from making mature seeds, it will continue growing fruit to try and reproduce itself. This translates to the more you pick, the more fruit produced.
Once you start picking ripe veggies, don’t stop. Even if you can’t eat it all, harvest it anyway. It’s the only way to keep the plants from sensing they have not finished their life cycle.
If you have too much produce, give it away to friends or donate it to a local homeless shelter or food bank.
Even the time of day can make a difference in the taste and texture of some vegetables. For sweetness, pick peas and corn late in the day because that’s when they contain the most sugar.
Lettuce and cucumbers, on the other hand, are crispier when picked early in the morning before the day’s heat has a chance to soften them. Morning is also the best time to harvest most leafy crops like chard and beet greens.
When picking greens like lettuce, spinach, chard and mustard, never pick just the outside leaves because they’re always the oldest and toughest. Instead, give the row a clean cut. This means slicing the plants about an inch above the ground. This encourages plants to send up tender, new growth. With some varieties of leaf lettuce, you can easily get three or four cuttings.
To pick corn at peak flavor, watch for the silk of ears to turn brown and brittle. To check kernels, peel back a couple of inches of husk and puncture a kernel with your nail. If the fluid is watery, wait a few days. If it’s starchy like a paste, you’ve waited too long; milky is just right.
Beans and peas should be picked when pods are plump; broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce when heads are solid.
Cucumbers are sweetest at only two to four inches in length; zucchini best when six inches. Watermelons are ripe when a dull, muffled sound is creaked when knocking.
A green melon has a higher-pitched sound. Cantaloupes should be picked at what is called the “slip” stage.
This occurs when slight pressure at the point where the stem joins the melon causes the melon to “slip” off the vine.
Remember, when there is something big enough to eat, go for it.
