Ripeness Guide

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. Pick the pods when they are two-and-a-half inches long, or about four or five days old.

ONIONS. Harvest green onions when the bulbs are one to two 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 four 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 four to six inches high. Then let the leaves grow until they're six to ten inches high before cutting again.

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.