When & How To Harvest Your Summer Crops for PEAK Flavor 🥒🍅🌶️

Do you ever wonder if you've harvested your vegetables at their peak flavor? Well four years ago I started gardening with one goal in mind and that is to grow the most flavorful produce possible. So today we're going to be covering the perfect harvest timing windows for summer classics like tomatoes, corn, melon, beans, and everything in between. And with summer in full swing timing is everything. Wait a little bit too long and your harvest is going to be overripe. But harvest it a little bit too early and you're leaving a lot of flavor in the garden. But don't worry because by the end of this video you're going to have the confidence to harvest your vegetables at peak flavor that is so good you can't put a price on it. When it comes to summer classics watermelon is something I crave every single year and Kevin has me beat this year on melons that's for sure. So let's take a look at his and see if any of them are ready to harvest and maybe I'll take one home for myself. Now a couple things that you want to look at. First of all there's usually a waxy coating on a watermelon. I could see a little bit of it here and as soon as that starts to fade and it starts to become a little bit shinier that is actually a good sign that the watermelon is actually now starting to become ripe. Now if you're growing it on the ground one of the most indicative things to look for is the field spot on the bottom. It should become sort of creamy yellow off white color. The deeper that color is the better. But this can also be dictated by the surface you're growing it on, how wet it is, and what soil you have. So you want to try to combine as many things as possible. So the next one is to actually look at where the watermelon attaches to the main vine. There are usually two things there. First of all if the tendril is starting to become brown and shriveled or in fact is fully brown and shriveled that is a pretty good sign. For some melons that happens a little bit before peak ripeness so you might have to play with it a little bit. But there's also something called a spoon leaf which is a little leaf on the underside. Oftentimes it's already gone by the time the tendril is brown so I wouldn't necessarily use that as your first instinct. Now let's talk about what you do if you don't have your watermelon on the ground because I got a couple danglers on that side right there. The reason I'm bringing up these dangling watermelons here is because they will never get a field spot because they're not actually on soil and they cannot develop that yellow creamy bottom. So instead what you're left with is the tendril, the spoon leaf, and the waxy exterior. This one has a little bit of that waxiness gone over here where I think it was facing the sun the most. It's starting to become shiny so I'm going to go ahead and harvest this one. I have one underneath it that has the same conditions so if this guy here is ripe then the next one should also be ripe. So we already harvested that one. Let's go ahead and get this guy too because it feels like it's ready. This one needs some time but let me show you one in the back that is definitely not ready and it's a great example. Most cantaloupe including this chardonnay melon here will be what is considered a full flip melon. That is referring to the slip which is the part where the fruit attaches to the vine. Now the other thing I will mention is that you could easily take a look at the base of that slip where it meets the fruit. If it looks like it's fully continuous with the fruit then it's definitely not ready but once they are starting to become ready you'll see a little bit of a crack forming around the slip and the vine there and that is a great indicator that you could give it a little test pull. If it pops off easy you're ready to go. Oftentimes it's hard to know whether your melon is a full slip variety so what I would recommend is to look at the color originally, usually green, and keep track of that. Once it, oh that one is it just popped right off but the main thing you want to look for is that it's going from green to usually an orangish yellow color depending on the variety and when it's for sure ready you should be able to go right up next to it give it a deep whiff and if it smells like you just could open a fresh cantaloupe that guy is ready to go and it should be absolutely delicious. Let's take a look inside and see if we got these right. I'm gonna go ahead and cut it and sometimes when they're really ripe they will snap as you're cutting them. Oh man that looks really juicy inside. Not really sure on this guy if it is actually ready there's a little bit of yellow coloration but it's also dependent on some of these melons which are heirlooms they're not bred to be perfect so we'll do a little taste test on that one. This one is really really sounding to me like it's perfect so oh yeah so look right there when I started cutting it this crack just happened so my knife cut was here and just split right open so let's peel it open. Now that is oftentimes a sign that the melon is indeed ripe or another thing that it could be is a sign that it is maybe a little bit over watered so the real test is the taste test. My god that is so sweet I love seeded watermelons they're really hard to find nowadays. This is an orange variety which was quite the surprise I didn't realize Kevin was growing an orange variety but this one's definitely ripe it's crisp you could hear it snap when I break it and it is very juicy and sweet absolutely phenomenal something you cannot buy at the store. Now let's go ahead and try the other one that has the funky coloration to it. One thing that I'm noticing that's usually a sign of a melon being a little bit early there are these little swirls here you could see that it's almost like a geyser it comes up and it swirls back on itself that's usually an indication that this was a little bit early. Now the thing that we saw though was that the tendril was fully dry the spoon leaf was dry so what that means is that this one needs to go past that dry tendril and realistically you'd probably want to wait for all this kind of waxing material to disappear but really the taste test is going to be what tells us. Super sweet really nice aroma not quite as crisp as the other one but that could be a variety dependent. Overall both of these melons were absolutely delicious and I will be eating both of these as soon as I'm done here but on this guy I would actually wait until that waxiness fully disappeared instead of relying on the tendril but the tendril is definitely a good starting point and this is still a delicious melon. Now let's move on to the Chardonnay melons oh my god that is a thing of beauty in there guys right off the bat I could tell you that they both smell really delicious and good but there is something different here this one that had the darker color has like more of a marbled deeper orange color in here in the flesh compared to this guy here now I think both of them will be absolutely delicious so let's give a little slice little taste test so this is the one that was riper that's really good that's also really good now that I've tasted them I could tell you that this one for sure is sweeter more perfumy deeper flavor and it is worth waiting for a slightly more orange color on that melon. Now the one thing I will caveat and caution is that you always are sniffing them as you are waiting for them to ripen because if it starts to smell a little bit rancid a little bit putrid you might have over ripened it and that whole flavor experience is going to be ruined so it is a really a matter of days maybe one day before something is perfectly full ripe and actually overripe and not as good so pay attention but regardless both of these are absolutely phenomenal. Now let's talk about corn but none of our corn is quite ready yet so let's take a look at my corn from last year and I'll show you exactly what to look for for peak harvest flavor. So I have quite a lot of corn here most of it I'm going to be leaving as dry corn and that's because I'm growing the Martian Jewels variety of corn. This is a type of corn you can eat as sweet corn or you can leave it as flour corn if it dries fully so for now I'm harvesting a couple cobs to do sweet corn and just for reference though this is a type of corn that although sweet it is an old school sweet corn so it's not like a crazy sugary sweet it has a more kind of soft texture a little bit more savoriness to it but it is still a sweet corn. So I'm going to peel this one open I just already know that it's ready just because I've been able to visualize it so here's a problem though so right there that is a corn earworm so it has ate the top couple rows of corn I'm going to go ahead toss that aside and let me show you what the rest looks like. Now again I knew this one was ready just because I could see it on site but I'll show you exactly what to look for after we take a look at this. So here's what we have left this is the section that the corn earworm ate and that's totally fine because here's what we're going to do I'm going to get some pruners I'm going to come just about like half a row past where that damage is snap it right off and there we go. This is oftentimes why you see corn like this in the store it's already pre-cut and the rest of it is 100% fine no issues whatsoever. So now how do we know when to harvest this corn so it looks like this and in case you're wondering you can eat sweet corn raw straight from the garden and it's delicious but don't eat too much because it is known to have a laxative effect but munching down on at least one cob to enjoy the fruits of your labor is highly recommended. So here's our ear of corn and the first thing you're going to want to look at is the silk if the silk is nice and brown like this then odds are that your corn is ready to go. Now you don't have to entirely take the corn off to determine whether it's ready what you can do is find one of these outer leaves and then just start peeling off one of them you don't have to rip it you could kind of try to ease it open we are now looking at the inside of the corn now this is called the milk test so when a corn cob is ready the corn is fully ripe and at its peak sweetness what you can do is take like a fingernail or just like a knife I'll use a knife just to make it more obvious so what you're going to do is poke one of these kernels and if the juice is coming out white so let's see if I can do that again see how it's all white there that is a sign that the corn is ready if it came out sort of clear and watery instead of milky and white and that means that it's not ready so in this case it is ready what you're going to do is just snap it down like that and now the easiest way to process the corn is to just grab your snips or pruners and then what I like to do is kind of feel down here to find where the base of the corn cob is which is right there I'll take my pruners and then just snip that off like so that'll get most of the outer layers off nice and easy and then what I like to do is come to the top there's that corn earworm damage snip that and now you could store your corn just like this or you could peel it one thing that I want to mention about sweet corn is that when you harvest it as soon as you harvest that corn it is starting to degrade in the sense that those sugars in this corn kernel is going to quickly turn into starch so as soon as you harvest your corn and you want to eat it asap it's going to be the sweetest most delicious if you eat it right away if you wait it'll get more starchy it won't be as sweet so I just recently got back from vacation only to find my tomato trellis here has collapsed under its own weight because I have not been pruning it and maintaining it but the good news is is that is absolutely loaded with tomatoes so I'm gonna pick a couple that are under ripe and some that are full ripe and I'll show you all the differences and which one I think is best I wanted to show you guys the challenging tomatoes things like the Cherokee purple or this one here Harvest Moon which is an orange red tomato these are the ones that are a little bit trickier to figure out versus just a red tomato which is ready when it's fully red so what are you looking for on something like an orange tomato you're looking for deep colors on the bottom that are lightening to the surface and it should feel a little bit soft at the top that's how you know that it is fully ripe and ready to eat let's take a closer look at some of these Cherokee purple tomatoes and talk about the different gradation of ripeness now one thing I will mention is that if your tomatoes are like 50 to 70 percent of the final color I would go ahead and pick them then you're not going to lose any flavor by letting them ripen from that less ripe all the way to full ripe it's really actually set at that point it's just a matter of it reaching and developing those flavors from within there are actually a lot of advantages to harvesting your tomatoes early a for one it's not going to be as big of a target to pests like birds rats mice you name it they're less likely to eat a tomato that is green rather than one that is red so picking it a little bit early will protect your harvest the other thing is that during summer it is hot and these tomatoes are ripening very very quickly you might have a tomato that's like 80 percent of the way ripe in the morning when you check on it you go to work come back eight hours later and that tomato could very well be overripe and not just because the heat is actually influencing the ripening especially when it's outside on the plant so in my experience once you get to like that 70 80 percent color range you should just harvest it and bring it indoors and when you do bring it indoors make sure you store it on the actual shoulders like so rather than on the blossom end like this and that's because tomatoes ripen from the bottom blossom end up to the shoulders so the shoulders will remain nice and firm during that ripening process and you won't end up with a squishy tomato by time you eat it now if your tomato is 100 ripe like these guys over here they are ready to go and ready to eat then you should eat them if you cannot eat them that is the only time you will want to actually put a tomato in the fridge now hear me out the reason why i'm saying this is because if you put that tomato in the fridge the ripening process will essentially stop now if it's full of ripe and you leave it for another day by the time you get to it the next morning it could very well be overripe and actually a little bit disgusting and a little bit putrid tasting but if you put it in the fridge and then you take it out when you're ready to eat it let it reach room temperature that tomato will basically have almost all of its initial flavor and many people have tested this and found it to be true so when it comes to knowing that a Cherokee purple tomato is ripe you're going to want to look at the bottom first you'll see that there is a lot more yellow and green colors as they ripen it'll become more reddish and then it'll eventually become more purplish as the name suggests in Cherokee purple once you get to this stage it should be good eating and actually quite delicious but you could also experiment with eating it a little bit early or right up to full ripe and you might enjoy the less sweet flavors on a slightly early tomato it's all about experimenting and finding what you like but the top should also have less of this green shoulder action and it should start to have proper color that's how you know something like a Cherokee purple or a dark colored tomato is ready to eat. If you love growing fresh lettuce in the summertime just like me here are a couple tips to pick it so it isn't too bitter because the summer heat will make most lettuce bitter instead of waiting for the full head to form you want to actually come out here and pick the little inner leaves not the very very tiniest ones but the sort of mid-sized leaves off from the center and you want to come through and just pick off as many as you need to make a salad you could grab like two from this plant two from that plant maybe four from the next and what you'll have is tender leaves that haven't existed for too long in the summer heat and thus they won't be quite as bitter so don't wait for the full head of lettuce to form instead just pick out a couple leaves as you need them. Trust me when I tell you that there are some actual nuances to harvesting summer squash or zucchini at peak flavor because realistically peak flavor is a spectrum of different use cases for your squash for example if you forgot to harvest your squash and you end up with a big boy like this that's totally fine you could split this down the middle scoop it out fill it with something delicious bake it in the oven and that bigger size squash is going to hold together a little bit better and retain its texture they also tend to get a little bit sweeter at the bigger size so it's fantastic for making things like zucchini bread which everybody actually really truly loves. Now the other thing I wanted to call out here is that you don't have to wait for squash to get really any size at all before harvesting and eating it you could pick squash as baby zucchini like this guy here there's a tiny little fruit with the flower still attached you could eat that entire thing and it's actually quite delicious this is a great way to stop yourself from getting overwhelmed with giant piles of zucchini because if you go out and you pick them at this size or this size they're simply not going to have that much volume and they're going to be really tender nutty and delicious so I prefer to pick them really really tiny if I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed otherwise I'll wait till about this size here which is basically what you find at the grocery store is a pretty ideal squash now of course this could get 25 to 50 percent bigger and still going to be eating just about the same but once it gets any bigger than that they're going to start to have some seeds develop and that's when it's really best for baking or shredding to make other things with it. Now let's talk about eggplant. Eggplant is one of these interesting ones because it's actually surprisingly easy to tell when it's ready and the main thing is how shiny the skin is see how reflective and beautiful this eggplant is right here this is an Asian style where they're more elongated but this is true across the board for any style of eggplant you grow when it's nice and shiny and reflective it is ready to harvest and you can harvest it young a little bit smaller it's totally fine or wait until it reaches its maximum size as soon as it starts to lose some of this shine and becomes more dull less reflective that is when it's no longer ripe it's going to start having seeds it will be bitter it's just simply not going to be a very good eat now the other thing you could do is give it a squeeze if you give it not even a squeeze if you press with your finger like so it should bounce back if it doesn't bounce back it's almost certainly overripe and it's not going to be a good time it probably be bitter so shiny has a good bounce back that is when eggplant of all types is ready and delicious to eat i've got to say if there was one plant in the garden that offered the widest spectrums of flavors it's got to be the pepper plant it is such a wonderful harvest because you could harvest things green or full color ripeness and everything in between and get a whole different world of flavors many people don't even realize this but a green bell pepper is actually simply just the yellow or red or orange bell pepper that hasn't fully turned ripe so you now have access to green peppers red peppers yellow peppers orange peppers all from the same plant all you have to do is let them either ripen or reach that mature green state and harvest it then now there is actually too early time to harvest peppers because if they're just green and not even full green like this one has started to break and change color so it's absolutely at the ripe green stage but if you harvest them too early they'll end up just tasting like you're eating some grass or leaves or just something sort of green so experiment but wait for a little color breaker like this if you want to get that green pepper from your own garden it's going to taste much better than anything at the grocery store and it won't be all bitter and weird now there is another tip and trick when it comes to something like a jalapeno let's talk about that first of all I should just say that I think all peppers are best when you allow them to go full ripe but when you let them go a little bit past ripe they start to change in a way that in my opinion isn't as pleasant so let's talk about the unique flavor spectrum offered from peppers as they ripen when they are green they tend to have more of that peppery flavor that you get from smelling them so if you smell a bell pepper that is pretty much what you're going to be tasting without any signs of sweetness that is kind of the difference when it gets into that colorful stage so these are the same pepper this one obviously was left green with a little bit of color and this one has now almost fully ripened and turned orange this is going to be substantially sweeter might even be juicier might even be crisper but generally speaking green peppers are still crisp and juicy they just aren't going to be as sweet when it comes to spicier peppers they will be spicy when they're green and in my experience they tend to get spicier as they ripen and darken and deepen in color part of that is because as a pepper is fully ripening the walls will get progressively thinner and the flavor will become more concentrated now the trade-off is that they won't be as crisp and juicy so I like to harvest them a little bit before they go absolutely totally full ripe because then they still have more snap to them they're a little bit juicier but I highly encourage that you experiment with a pepper plant harvest some that are green some that are half colorful some that are full color and some that are super dark deep colorful there are plenty of peppers on a single plant so you have a lot of chances to experience the full gamut of flavor spectrum and you could choose whichever one you like best now let's talk about a unique feature called corking this is something that I see on a lot of different peppers but in particular jalapenos seem to always do it and they are basically little lines they're little squiggly lines or stretch marks that are sort of brownish tannish color and they run down the pepper that is your sign that the pepper has gone from a under ripe green which might taste like you're eating grass or leaves to a ripe green true jalapeno flavor with all the spice and flavor aromatics in there that corking sign is a sign of maturity this will carry forward to something like this which is also a jalapeno that is allowed to be fully ripened and turn red now if you take this and you dry it and smoke it or smoke it and dry it it will become a chipotle pepper so that is just a testament to the full wide spectrum of pepper flavors out there get out there experiment try them at different stages and see which one you prefer most hot peppers tend to get a little bit fruitier when they turn red so I highly encourage you try them because they're actually really delicious and not only are they delicious but you can't buy this at the grocery store when it comes to harvesting cucumbers at least the green ones you have a really nice indicator for when they're actually peak in their flavor not going to be bitter or too seedy so Kevin's cucumber vine here has been producing like crazy so I figured I'd come over here and grab a couple of these guys to show you what I'm looking at now the main thing you want to look for is first of all if it's growing on the ground it will have a field spot like this one here so let's ignore that for now but the main thing I'm looking for is if you look at the blossom end you can see how this one is starting to lose that dark green color it's a little bit yellow whereas this one is more uniform in shape still dark green at the bottom that is what you're looking for once the cucumber starts to lose that dark green color become a little bit yellow it's past its prime it'll be more bitter and will very likely be full of many more seeds so let's go ahead and cut these two open and I'll show you just how different they are even though they look fairly close in size so now let's go ahead and cut these cucumbers open and see if indeed there is a major difference so this is the one that I said was peak ripe didn't have a lot of yellow streaks at the bottom and indeed the seeds look quite small not really fully developed which is exactly what we want to see so here's the one that has some of that yellow streaking and what you'll see is that overall there is actually much more seed cavity but not only that you're starting to get some of these hollow spots in the seed cavity like over here which is much less pleasant to eat so let me do another cross-section across the middle here and right there you can see another difference is that over here this has become sort of white and spongy whereas on this cucumber it's still nice and vibrant green has that pale green color to it this is going to taste much better than this one so this tastes sweet and refreshing so what am I noticing in the difference both of them are actually quite sweet I don't really detect any bitterness but this one has some crunch and snap to it whereas this one is almost a little bit soft and mealy closer to a melon than a nice crisp cucumber so try to look for the darker ones that don't have any streaking of yellow that's going to be your optimal cucumber for delicious flavor the home gardener is truly a lucky cook because they have access to fresh delicious aromatic herbs straight from the garden but how do you ensure that those herbs have the peak flavor that will blow away whoever you are trying to impress with your cooking well the step one is to not harvest them in the middle of the day really any time between like 10 and seven o'clock that intense sun heat and uv has been beating on your plants and it's evaporating away all of those delicious essential oils those are the ones that give us the flavor that we are looking for now of course if you're cooking it's the middle of the day go out there harvest your herbs they're still going to taste leagues better than anything you get at the grocery store but if you're trying to like really get the full flavor or you're trying to preserve those herbs the best time is to do it early in the morning before the sun really starts to cook your plants or even late in the evening is okay but morning is always going to be best if you want the maximum flavor out of your herbs like this absolutely delicious thai basil and once your harvest is complete it is time to enjoy your harvest i got this watermelon that i stole from kevin's house nice and cooled off in the fridge it's time to dive in and enjoy good luck in the garden keep on growing and may your harvest be as flavorful as this delicious watermelon perfection