Vegetable wizard Stephen Allen points out how important it is to harvest at the right moment. Allen points out that most kitchen gardeners wait too long to harvest and eat their vegetables. He offers a useful list of early harvests.
We err in waiting for the produce in our kitchen gardens to look like what’s in the grocery store. Commercial producers grow for size because of market demand. Home grown vegetables and fruits will often be smaller, more tender, ripen more quickly, and also be more flavorful than commercially grown produce. For example, don’t wait for your backyard strawberries to get as big as store-bought ones: they will rot long before they get that large. And peas are at their peak for eating within two hours of picking: pick them as soon as the peas in the pod are large enough for shelling. Instead of size, kitchen garden fruits and vegetables are packed with flavors and nutrients. So savor your first fruits now.
As Alice Waters in The Art of Simple Food (2007) writes, “Food tastes naturally delicious when it has been grown with care, harvested at the right moment, and brought to us immediately . . . .”
Here’s a list of some of the things you can enjoy from your kitchen gardens now:
- radishes: daikon, red and kaleidoscope colors
- baby beets
- cabbage: use the first leaves before the head forms for cole slaw, soups and stews
- rapini
- peas
- chard
- kale
- head lettuces: pick often to prevent bolting, turning bitter and going to seed
- mache
- bok choy
- kohlrabi: can be picked at 2-3 inches in diameter
- carrots
- strawberries
- herbs
Here are things to watch for in the next few weeks:
- cucumbers: all types
- summer squash and zucchini: pick early before a hard shell forms or the squash becomes so large it looses flavor; also squash blossoms are a delicacy so watch for them
- beans: bush and edaname (soybean)
Our cool weather is putting us about a month behind schedule but tomatoes, corn, melons and other hot-weather-loving vegetables will soon be ripe and on your table.
Eat, eat!