Knowing When To Pick Vegetables Important

It isn’t always easy to tell when home-grown vegetables should be picked for their maximum goodness, but it’s vital in home gardening.

Even the best of the backyard vegetables won’t be prime quality if gathered too early or too late. And even the most experienced gardeners may have trouble making some of the harvest calls.

Generally, I think we’re more likely to pick them too late than too early, and when served, the vegetables turn out to be tough, maybe bitter and too fibrous. Anyway, they sometimes don’t exactly live up to our expectations.

Many vegetables are at peak quality in the garden only briefly. Corn, okra, asparagus and all types of English peas are at their best only a short time; furthermore, none of these, except okra, can be kept long after harvest without losing quality.

Beans and leafy vegetables can trick us into waiting too long to harvest them by giving very few clues to go on.

Once harvested, vegetables usually keep best if refrigerated, for this lengthens the time it takes for their sugars to turn to starches or other flavors to fade.

But life processes such as the loss of water and sugars continues even in the refrigerator, and after a few days the process has gone far enough to lower the prime qualities they had when picked.

The following rundown from long gardening experience may help in timing the harvest of some popular vegetables.

Corn: The silk is brown but not black-brown; the ear feels slightly rounded on the tip, not thin and tapered; pulling back the shuck shows rounded grains, not transparent with prematurity or indented with overmaturity; and finally, breaking a grain with a thumbnail produces milk that is neither watery nor starchy and thick.

Tomatoes: Red ripeness is the easy harvest marker, but don’t let them stay on the vine in this condition too long or they’ll get mushy or may burst from too much water following rains. In addition, tomatoes often will crack from rain just as they begin to turn pinkish. If this starts happening, you can still have good tomatoes by picking them when the green on the flower side turns whitish. This is the precursor to the red color and usually occurs before bursting begins. Tomatoes that have reached this stage have developed virtually all the goodness they’re going to have, and will be full of flavor after ripening on your shelf.

Snap beans: Best if harvested before maturity; pods should be firm, not rubbery, and the seeds should make the pods swell no more than a little. Pick and discard any overmature ones to keep the vines producing.

Lima beans: A tough call here because the pods reach full size before the beans are ready. Feeling the pod tells you if it is thin with immature beans or a little thicker with prime-quality kernels. A little experience will help with this. Yellowing pods are past their best, but the vines will shut down unless you pick them off.

Summer squash: They have such a short prime time on the vine that it can be easily missed. Always pick them immature, a fingernail easily cutting the skin, and this stage comes within a very few days after the bloom opens. Daily picking is best. The squash group includes the various yellow, scallop and pattypan types as well as the popular, productive zucchini.

Cucumbers: Aother vegetable with a short life of high quality on the vine. It is crisp and most flavorful when only a few days old, with soft edible seeds. Miss this stage and the insides likely turn soft, seedy and bitter.

Okra: Don’t let the pods get more than about 5 inches long; 4 is better. They quickly develop woody fibers after this size, long before reaching the mature and totally inedible size. And when gathering okra, cut the stem, complete with base cap, and not the pod itself.

Leaf greens: Harvest when the leaves are firm, bright green and roughly two-thirds of their full size; too small and they may be bland. Mature sizes are likely to be tough and strongly flavored.

Cabbage family: Broccoli and cauliflower heads should be firm and dense, without loosening of individual florets or change in color. Look for bluish-green in broccoli heads, white with no cream color in cauliflower. Kohlrabi bulbs should be cut when about 3 inches in diameter, before peel becomes woody. Cabbage heads have a kind of yielding firmness when ready to cut.