DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. — Home gardeners nationwide face a familiar midsummer question: After months of watering, weeding and tending their plants, how can they tell when produce is ready to harvest?
Picking even a day early or late can mean the difference between a perfect ear of corn and one picked too soon or a juicy tomato and a mealy disappointment.
To help take the guesswork out of midsummer harvesting, the National Garden Bureau has released a comprehensive new harvest guide, “Ripe and Ready? How to Know When to Harvest Homegrown Fruits and Veggies.”
Packed with expert tips from North America’s top plant breeders, the new guide covers 16 warm-season favorites from hidden subterranean crops, such as sweet potatoes, to tricky vine-ripened melons.
“We’ve all walked into the garden to find a zucchini that somehow turned into a baseball bat overnight,” NGB Executive Directory Diane Blazek said in a press release. “Our goal with this guide is to give home growers clear visual and sensory cues so they can harvest at the precise moment of peak flavor, texture and nutritional value.”
GUIDE HIGHLIGHTS
The guide highlights plant varieties developed by NGB’s national network of innovative breeders, growers and distributors.
From compact patio varieties designed for container gardens, such as Patio Baby eggplant and Quick Snack cucumbers, to All-America Selections winners, such as Century Star watermelon and Dragonfly peppers, the guide helps consumers match harvest timing to specific plant genetics.
— The morning golden hour: For maximum crispness and sugar content, harvest produce in the early morning just after the dew dries. Avoid picking during peak heat, which causes harvested fruits and vegetables to wilt rapidly.
— The hidden crop cues: For crops hidden beneath husks or soil, rely on secondary signs. Corn is ready at the milk stage when silks are full, dry and brown. Watermelons signal readiness when the tendril closest to the fruit dries up and the underbelly turns from white to creamy yellow.
— The breaker-stage trick for tomatoes: Gardeners battling pests or summer rainstorms don’t need to leave tomatoes on the vine until they are fully red. Tomatoes harvested at the breaker stage — when green skin first blushes pink or yellow — will finish ripening indoors on a countertop without losing flavor, color or nutrients.
— Continuous yields: Crops like bush beans, cucumbers and basil respond directly to harvest frequency. The more regularly gardeners pick, the more the plant is stimulated to produce.