Ripeness Guide

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It's easy to tell if certain fruits, vegetables and herbs are ready for harvest; others require a little more investigation. The following Ripeness Guide offers tips on how to tell when it's time to harvest!

Beans

Taste one and decide. You may want to start harvesting French snap or string beans when they are about the diameter of a chopstick, maybe even thinner. Standard varieties are ready when they are as thick as a pencil and before the seeds swell and become visible through the pods. Lima beans are ready when their pods take on a green color and feel full. When bean pods turn white, feed them to the pigs or the compost pile.

Broccoli

Harvest when the buds (treetops) are dark blue-green and tightly closed. If the underside of the top turns yellow, you've waited too long.

Chives

Cut before the purple blossoms form, and keep them cut back for the sweetest flavor.

Corn

Ripe corn has a tight husk and its silk is dry and brown. If you have serious doubts, open an ear and stab a kernel with your fingernail. If the kernel contains milk, it's ripe; if it contains water, it isn't; and if it's tough and dry and has no liquid at all, it's overripe.

Leeks

Harvest when the white portions are about one-and-a-half inches in diameter.

Okra

Kick the pods when they are two-and-a-half inches long, or about 4 or 5 days old.

Onions

Harvest green onions when the bulbs are 1 to 2 inches in diameter. Wait for the tops of storage onions to fall over and turn brown before you pull them.

Peas

Pick when plump but before the pods wrinkle on the stem and take on a dull whitish cast.

Potatoes

Harvest the first delectable little potatoes when plants have just bloomed. For more-mature potatoes, which will be the best keepers, wait until the foliage has died down.

Pumpkins and Winter Squashes

These cousins are ready to harvest when their skin hardens. Press your fingernail through the flesh. If you have to work at it, the squash is ripe; if it's very easy to pierce, the squash is immature.

Summer Squashes

Yellow squash and zucchini are at their best when they're 4 inches long. Pick them young. Plenty more will follow.

Sweet Potatoes

Dig when the vines turn yellow.

Swiss Chard

Cut the first leaves when they're 4 to 6 inches high. Then let the leaves grow until they're 6 to 10 inches high before cutting again.

Tomatoes

Leave your tomatoes on the vine as long as possible. The perfect tomato for picking will be very red in color, regardless of size, with perhaps some yellow remaining around the stem. A ripe tomato will be only slightly soft.

Turnips

For best flavor, harvest when they're the size of golf balls.

Watermelon

When the stem curls and turns brown and the place where the melon touches the ground turns yellow, it's ready. Rap it with your knuckles and listen for a dull, hollow sound.

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