Niki Jabbour’s Tips for When to Harvest Vegetables
Advice for 18 common veggies
To be sure you enjoy your homegrown vegetables at peak quality and flavor, you must know when to harvest them. Plus, regular harvesting of crops like peas and beans increases yield, with the plants producing new flowers and pods for a longer period of time.
There are several indications that it’s time to harvest crops. These include the size and color of the plant, fruit or pod, and the nearing of the crop’s “days to maturity.” Listed on the seed packet, days to maturity is the average time needed for a vegetable to go from seed to harvest. The seed packet or transplant tag should also describe the visual clues that suggest the crop is ready to pick.
While precise details can vary between varieties, there are also commonalities. Here are my guidelines and advice for harvesting 18 favorite homegrown vegetables:
Snap beans
Snap beans, both bush and pole varieties, are ready to pick when the pods measure between four and six inches long. For the highest quality pods, harvest before the interior seeds start to swell. Pick every day or two to promote maximum production.
Related: “Growing Beans in the Home Garden”
Beets
Tender baby beets are ready when the roots reach the size of a golf ball. Gently brush soil away from the top of the root to gauge its size. If it’s one-and-a-half to two inches across, harvest. If you intend to store your beets for winter meals, wait until they reach maturity. The roots of most beet varieties mature to three to four inches in diameter.
Broccoli
Harvest broccoli when the heads are tightly packed with bright green buds and they’re about six to eight inches across. Carefully use a sharp knife to slice the head from the stalk. After I harvest broccoli, I leave the plants standing in the garden for an extra few weeks so we can enjoy the secondary crop of side shoots.
Cabbage
I tend to grow a lot of baby cabbage varieties, like ‘Pixie’, which are ready to harvest just two months from seeding. At that point, the heads span four to five inches and they’re tightly packed with layers of leaves. Main season cabbages produce heads six to eight inches across; those are ready to cut when they are both firm and full size.
Carrots
The best way to tell if carrots are ready to harvest is to dig up a root. Start harvesting baby carrots when the roots are a half-inch across at the shoulders, or let them grow to their mature size. To avoid broken tops, first loosen the soil with a garden fork and then pull the roots.
Corn
Corn has a very narrow window of harvest in terms of maximum sweetness. As the days-to-maturity date nears, I harvest an ear. The kernels should be plump and have a sweet, milky sap when pierced with a fingernail. Once you’ve determined the corn is ready, pick it all and enjoy immediately.
Cucumbers
I start to harvest cucumbers when the fruits are slightly smaller and lighter than the size and color indicated on the seed packet. Pickling cucumbers are harvested at two to three inches long; slicers, when the fruits reach five to eight inches long; and English-types when they measure twelve to fourteen inches long.
Eggplant
I used to find it tricky to figure out when to pick eggplants, but now that I know what to look for it is super easy. Harvest when the fruits are slightly smaller than indicated on the seed packet and the skin is firm and glossy. If the skin turns dull, you’ve waited too long.
Kale
I grow kale for baby greens and mature leaves. Ready just a month from sowing, baby greens get picked when they stand two to four inches. Most varieties of kale mature 50 to 60 days from seeding. This is when you can begin to harvest full-sized leaves for kale chips, salads and soups.
Lettuce
Like kale, lettuce can be enjoyed as a baby salad green or as full-sized heads. Pinch or clip young leaves for salads or harvest mature heads by carefully slicing them off just above the soil.
Onions
I like to pull immature onions during the growing season to slice in salads or toss on the barbecue. The main crop is ready to harvest in late summer, when about a third of the leaves have fallen over. Carefully dig bulbs with a garden fork and cure them for several weeks before storing.
Peas
When the pea harvest begins in late spring you will find me in the pea patch! I grow shell, sugar and snap peas, which should all be harvested daily. Shell peas are picked when the pods fatten up; snow peas, when the tender, flat pods lie two to four inches long; and snap peas when the crisp pods reach two to three inches long.
Related: “Growing Peas in the Home Garden”
Peppers
Sweet peppers mature from green to red, orange, yellow, purple and even white. Harvest them when still green or let the fruits ripen fully to maximize sweetness. Hot peppers are picked when they’re the desired size and color. For example, jalapeños are typically harvested when still green, but cayennes are left until ripe red.
Potatoes
I love new potatoes and start to harvest them in midsummer, once the plants finish flowering. You can dig the entire plant or steal a couple small tubers from each. Storage or main-crop potatoes are harvested once the frost has killed the plants in autumn. Dig spuds carefully with a garden fork.
Related: “Grow Potatoes in Your Home Garden”
Spinach
A short-lived vegetable, spinach tastes delicious as a baby green and when the leaves reach their full size. I start picking spinach when the leaves are two inches long and continue until the plants start to bolt (send up flowering stems).
Summer squash
Summer squash is a vegetable that must be harvested while immature for the best texture. Using pruners, clip the fruits from the plants when they’re four to six inches long, or two to three inches across for round and pattypan types.
Winter squash
Unlike summer squash, winter types are picked only when fully mature. The days to maturity will have elapsed and the rind should have turned its mature color. But harvest these before hard frost, as cold temperatures can damage the fruits and reduce storage life.
Tomatoes
Pick cherry and grape tomatoes when the fruits are fully colored. For large-fruited slicing tomatoes, I prefer to harvest when about 50 percent of the fruit has colored up. This is because fully ripe tomatoes are a tempting treat to critters, and they can also split or crack. So I pick half-ripe fruits and let them finish coloring up on my kitchen counter.
