Reaping what we sow with vegetable gardens

This is the time of year that every home vegetable gardener eagerly anticipates — savoring the flavor of that garden tomato or fresh-from-the-garden corn on the cob.

Freshness and flavor are perhaps the two biggest reasons for planting a home vegetable garden. Because of storage and shipping factors, much of the produce available in grocery stores has been harvested prior to reaching peak eating quality. However, the home gardener has the ability to pick their vegetables at the optimal time for maximum flavor and nutritional value.

So, how do you know when it is time to harvest? Most vegetables attain their best eating quality when allowed to ripen on the plant, but often this peak quality is reached before the vegetables are fully mature. Allowing them to remain on the plant too long results in processes that cause undesirable qualities, such as poor texture and bitterness or lack of sweetness. In addition, vegetables left on the plant too long can attract more insects and disease.

Another factor that calls for prompt harvest is the fact that, biologically speaking, the goal of a plant is to make seed to reproduce itself. As plants complete their reproduction process, they will stop producing fruit. So, the notion of “bigger is better” does not apply here!

Almost all vegetables are best when gathered early in the morning, the time of day that they are at their peak of crispness, juiciness, and sweetness. Because quality is highest at the moment of harvest and begins to decrease rapidly afterwards, vegetables should quickly be moved out of direct sunlight into a cool place until they can be consumed, frozen, or canned. Harvesting most vegetables when they are young and storing them properly will help to extend their shelf life. However, some vegetables, such as sweet corn and English peas, are highly-perishable and have a much shorter storage life than other vegetables because of quality loss when their sugars rapidly change to starch.

Tags on vegetable transplants as well as seed catalogs generally list the number of days to maturity for crops. While this may be a helpful planning tool, the actual maturity depends on many factors, including soil fertility, precipitation, and temperature. As we all know, this varies from year-to-year. Therefore, a gardener should know the indicators for various types of vegetables.

Here are some examples of common summer crops and when they have reached optimum maturity:

Lima beans – bright, green puffy pod with a large seed

Green beans – bean cavity full with seed  ¼ grown

Sweet corn – grain plump with liquid in the milk stage

Cucumber – dark skin with soft seeds

Okra –  2/3-inch long and still tender

Squash – rind can be penetrated with thumbnail

Watermelon – melon surface next to the ground turns from a light straw color to a richer yellow

For information about the best time to harvest other vegetables, see http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.cfm?number=C935 or visit your local County Extension office.

This story was originally published July 4, 2017 at 11:24 AM with the headline "Reaping what we sow with vegetable gardens."