Pick Your Garden Veggies at Peak Flavor Every Time with These 7 Harvesting Tips

You put in the time and money to grow your own vegetables so you can enjoy the freshest and tastiest produce just steps outside your door. But how do you know when to harvest vegetables in your garden? You'll know the best time to pick your homegrown produce by learning the harvesting clues that every vegetable provides. Variations in size, shape, color, and texture are all indicators of ripeness.

Harvesting vegetables at their peak allows you to capture their best flavor and highest nutritional value. Here’s how to tell when seven of the most popular vegetables are ready for harvest and how to pick them carefully and correctly.

1. Potatoes

When you see the tops of your potato plants flowering, you’ll know exactly when to harvest potatoes. The blooms indicate that the plant has tubers that are ready to harvest. Harvest small, “new” potatoes about 8 weeks after planting by using your hand to carefully remove a few potatoes from the ground without uprooting the entire plant.

Once the potato plant tops start dying back, dig and lift the entire plant with a garden fork to harvest the mature potatoes.

2. Green Beans

It’s important to harvest green beans when their pods are full and they’re 5 to 8 inches long (usually about 45 to 60 days after planting). You'll want to snap off the beans by hand before the seeds inside their pods reach full size and bulge the pods’ sides. Harvest the beans frequently to encourage additional bean production. When green beans remain on the vine for too long, the pods become tough and chewy.

3. Sweet Corn

After about 60 to 95 days after planting sweet corn, check the ears often for the appearance of silks. Your corn will be ready to harvest about 20 days after the first silks appear. For the best flavor, harvest corn when its kernels are smooth and plump but not mature and tough. Browning of the silks and fullness of the tip kernels are key indicators of ripeness. Experience corn at the peak of its freshness by puncturing a kernel with your thumbnail: milky sap means it's ready to eat.

Harvest corn by pulling the ear downward and twisting to break the shank below without breaking the parent stalk.

4. Cucumbers

Whether you grow your cucumber plants on the ground or on a trellis, once cucumber fruits form, they grow quickly. You’ll know a cucumber is ripe when its spiny, bumpy skin smooths out. Plan to harvest your first cucumbers 50 to 70 days after planting the seeds, depending on the variety and weather conditions. Pickling cucumbers should be harvested when they are 2 to 4 inches long. Slicing cucumbers should be picked when they are 6 to 9 inches long.

Make sure you check cucumber vines at least every other day for fruit that is ready to harvest. The more you harvest, the more the plants will produce. Leaving cucumbers on the vine for too long will signal the plant to stop producing. Plus, oversized cukes tend to be seedy or bitter. When harvesting, use scissors or pruning shears to snip the cucumbers off the tender vines rather than pulling them off the plant.

5. Onions

You’ll know when to harvest onions just by looking at its leaves. When an onion reaches its maturity, its leaves will die back and its tops will flop over. For the best flavor, wait to harvest onions until half of the leaves have died back.

Harvest onions by using a garden fork to loosen the soil around your plants, taking care not to skewer the onions. Then lift your onion bulbs out of the ground. If the soil is loose already, you can simply pull them up by hand. It’s best to keep the tops on onions until their necks are fully cured to eliminate an entry point for bacteria and fungi to cause bulb rot.

6. Tomatoes

The secret to harvesting tomatoes at their peak involves determining when they’re firm, full size, and fully colored. Pick fruit that feels slightly tender under your fingertips, and know the mature size and color of the tomato variety you are growing. Ripe tomatoes should easily come off the plant with a gentle tug. If picking them requires pulling, they aren't ready yet. You’ll find that the most flavorful tomatoes ripen best when the outdoor temperature is around 75°F.

Tomatoes that are left on the vine when the temperatures reach more than 90°F tend to soften too soon and develop poor color.

7. Asparagus

Unlike the other crops on this list, asparagus is a perennial. The first year after planting, you won't be able to harvest any because the plant needs time to get established. The second spring after planting, harvest a few spears over the course of one month. In the third spring after planting, you can cut spears for up to six weeks without weakening the plants.

Harvest established asparagus when it grows to about 6 inches tall. If you let the spears get taller than 6 inches, they will become too tough and fibrous to eat.

The most efficient way of harvesting asparagus is to grasp the stalk near the ground and snap it at the point where it is tender. Alternatively, cut the base of each spear with a knife.