Harvest in the morning

Vegetables are crisp and full of water after a cool night. Greens and herbs picked in the afternoon heat wilt fast.

When: Growing season

Record a harvest →

Pick beans, zucchini, and cucumbers often

These plants keep making more as long as you keep picking. Let one fruit get big and seedy, and the plant slows down. Check every day or two in summer.

When: Growing season · For: Green beans (bush), Pole beans, Zucchini / Summer squash, Cucumber

Pick zucchini small

Zucchini are best at 6 to 8 inches long: tender, with small seeds. They can grow that much in a day or two, so check often.

When: Growing season · For: Zucchini / Summer squash

Pick greens from the outside in

Take the outer leaves of lettuce, kale, chard, and collards, and leave the center to keep growing. One planting keeps giving for weeks.

When: Spring, Fall · For: Lettuce, Kale, Swiss chard, Collard greens, Spinach

Cut, don't pull

Peppers, eggplant, and melons are firmly attached. Pulling can snap the branch or uproot the plant. Cut them with pruners.

When: Growing season · For: Pepper, Hot pepper, Eggplant, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Honeydew

Pick tomatoes as they start to color

Tomatoes picked when they first blush ripen on the counter with just as much flavor. They're less likely to crack after rain, and birds and squirrels get fewer.

When: Growing season · For: Tomato, Cherry tomato

About fruit cracking →

Keep ripe tomatoes out of the fridge

Cold makes tomatoes mealy and dulls their flavor. Keep them on the counter, out of the sun, and eat them within a few days. Only chill the ones you can't use in time.

When: Growing season · For: Tomato, Cherry tomato

Know when a melon is ripe

A ripe cantaloupe slips off the vine with a gentle push and smells sweet. A watermelon is ready when the spot where it rests turns creamy yellow and the curly tendril nearest it has dried up.

When: Growing season · For: Cantaloupe, Watermelon

Test sweet corn with a fingernail

About 3 weeks after the silks appear, once they've turned brown and dry, peel back the husk and press a kernel. Milky juice means it's ready. Clear juice means wait a few days; no juice means it's past its best.

When: Growing season · For: Sweet corn

Pinch herbs often

Pinch basil just above a pair of leaves, and it grows two stems where there was one. Pinch off flower buds too, to keep the leaves coming.

When: Growing season · For: Basil, Thai basil

Freeze extra herbs in ice cube trays

Chop basil, parsley, or cilantro, pack it into ice cube trays, and top it off with olive oil or water. Pop out a cube or two for soups and sauces all winter.

When: Growing season, Fall · For: Basil, Parsley, Cilantro

Dry onions and garlic before storing them

Pull onions once most of their tops have flopped over, and garlic once the lower third of its leaves turn brown. Spread them somewhere airy and out of the sun for 2 to 3 weeks, until the necks are dry and papery.

When: Growing season · For: Onion (sets), Onion (transplants), Garlic, Shallots

Cure winter squash before storing it

Cut squash with a few inches of stem, and keep it somewhere warm (about 80°F) for a week or two, until the skin is too hard to dent with a fingernail. Then store it cool and dry, around 50 to 55°F. Cured butternuts keep for months.

When: Fall · For: Winter squash, Pumpkin

Store potatoes cool and dark

Dig them two weeks after the vines die back, so the skins toughen, and let them dry for a week or two out of the sun. Then keep them dark, cool, and dry: light turns them green and bitter.

When: Fall · For: Potato

Grow potatoes in bags →

Net berries before they ripen

Birds know when fruit is ripe a day before you do. Put netting over berries and cherries as soon as the first ones start to color.

When: Spring, Growing season · For: Strawberry (June-bearing), Strawberry (everbearing), Blueberry, Raspberry (summer), Blackberry, Cherry tree (sweet)

Weigh what you pick

A season of harvest weights shows which crops and varieties were worth the space. Grow more of the winners next year.

When: Growing season

Record a harvest →

Share what you can't use

Many food pantries gladly take fresh garden produce, and AmpleHarvest.org lists ones near you that do. Pick it the day you drop it off, so it's at its best.

When: Growing season