Now that the heat of the summer months is upon us, some of your vegetable crops are getting ready to be harvested. Although it might seem intuitive as to when to pick a vegetable off the vine, it’s not always so obvious. So, here’s a quick guide to harvesting your vegetables:
Tomato
This is easy, right? When the tomato turns red, it’s time to pick it off the vine and enjoy the fruits of your labor – and what a tremendous treat it is to partake of G-d’s great bounty and taste the incredible flavor bursting out of a vineripened tomato!
Of course, depending upon which tomato varieties you have chosen to grow, the tomato doesn’t always turn red – sometimes it is going to turn orange or yellow or dark brown (or even stay green!) or any number of other colors, depending upon what that tomato plant is programmed to produce.
In our garden, we have 26 tomato plants of a dozen different varieties flourishing at different stages of growth – the largest are already over six feet tall! There are large beefsteak reds, regular reds, cherry reds, cherry oranges, yellow plums, “black krum,” and multicolored Hawaiian. Now at the beginning of July, all the tomatoes are still green on the vines – but that is about to change soon. Iy”H, in another couple of weeks, these tomatoes will start to turn, and anticipation is building for the first ripe tomatoes of the season. In cases like this, it helps to know which varieties you are dealing with so that you can look for the final expected ripened color.
The best tomato is a vine-ripened tomato. Sometimes, however, an animal feels strongly about its territory (which you seem to have invaded) and therefore feels that you’ve planted these tomatoes just for it. Often, in this case, as soon as the fruit turns ripe, they will take a bite out of it! One year we had squirrels that did this on a regular basis; most often they took just one bite and then decided they really didn’t like it so much … until they saw the next ripe tomato!
If you’ve got a problem like this, here’s the solution: Pick the tomato off the vine as soon as it starts to “blush.” Bring it inside and put it on a sunny windowsill, where it will also ripen into full color. Even though you have lost the zechus of a “vine-ripened” tomato, count your blessings that you still have a tomato! (Taste quotient as compared to vine-ripened: 95 percent.)
As you read this, I know that some of you are asking: What do you do with tomatoes from 26 tomato plants!? As the season wears on, it is not unusual for us to pick a large bowl of tomatoes every other day! For at least the first two weeks, this is not a problem; every tomato disappears as soon as it turns ripe, often not even making it past the front door. After that, b”H, the kids and grandkids and neighbors come around, and most of them find the ever-ripening tomatoes to be a real treat (especially the grandkids from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where one year, I was told, they got one cherry tomato from their garden and cut it into sections so that everyone could have a taste… sigh).
But what about after the family goes home and the in-town kids, too, have had their fill of even the best tasting tomatoes? Then, if you are willing and able, you can process your tomatoes (and other vegetables) into all kinds of delicious dishes that can be stored in vacuum-sealed jars or pickled or frozen. How to do this is beyond the scope of this article (research this very well before trying it); but you should be aware that it can be done. In this way, you can preserve the taste of summer well into the cold winter months.
Here in the Cohen household, we don’t do any canning or freezing or pickling. We do something even more enjoyable: We give away all the extra tomatoes (and many other vegetables) that pour in as the season moves on. Every Friday afternoon during the late summer months and well into the fall, it is shalach mannos time, and we deliver care packages to many people who don’t have the privilege of growing their own produce. The joy you felt when you bit into your first home-grown tomato of the season can be shared time and time again with so many members of your family and the community; what can be better than that?
Cucumber
Home grown cucumbers come in second on my list of vegetables that simply cannot be compared to produce bought in the store: the ones fresh from the garden are crisp and sweet and full of sun-drenched vitamins. In the hot summer months, the vines take off and either cover your fence (with tendrils reaching out left and right, climbing up “hand-over-hand”) or grow out onto the ground nearby. Many varieties are prolific producers, with cucumbers coming up constantly for weeks on end.
As opposed to tomatoes, not every yellow flower on a cucumber vine will develop into a fruit. That’s because cucumbers (as well as all squash and melon varieties) have both male and female flowers. (Give thanks to the bees that do the pollination for you.) The male flowers just sit on a slim stem growing off the vine, but the female flowers have a little baby cucumber nestled between the flower and the vine. It’s fun to look for them when they first appear and then to watch them develop into a mature fruit.
As the cucumber grows, at first there will be rows of “ridges” along the length, and lying on top of these ridges are little grainy “spikes” (either white or black). As the cucumber reaches maturity, the ridges will smooth out, and this is the best time to pick it. Usually, the spiky grains are still there, so just rub your hand along the surface of the cuke, and they will fall off – ask your kids or grandkids to do it, since it’s fun to “finish off” and help with the picking process. (In store-bought cukes, you can see where these granules were by the little white markings left behind.)
Cucumbers will continue to grow bigger and fatter if you leave them on the vine past maturity – and a slightly overripe cucumber still tastes okay. However, if they get too big, the inside flesh starts to sour, and it’s better to just toss it. If you’ve got a lot of vines growing hither and thither, making for dense vegetation, you might even miss a cucumber hiding under the leaves, and then you will end up with “the cucumber that time forgot!” This forgotten cucumber will turn into a large, orange, dirigible-shaped monster that might be fun to look at and show off to family and friends; but don’t even think of serving it on your table.
Sometimes, even with cucumbers picked perfectly at maturity, the flesh near the stem is bitter. So, just cut off about a half inch of that end before serving. Also, there’s no need to peel your garden cucumbers (no resinous glaze applied to the outside skin to make them look nice for the consumer); there are lots of vitamins in that outer peel. Unless you don’t like the taste, consider leaving on the green and eating them the healthy way.
Pepper
Pepper plants are slow growers and don’t begin to grow well until the weather turns hot. You might find some early peppers growing on your young plants – and most usually these first fruits will just stop growing, drop off before maturity, and rot. Don’t worry; the plant just couldn’t handle fruit production at this early stage and therefore let go of the fruit. Iy”H, pretty soon more fruits will be on the way.
Each white flower that appears on the plant has the potential to grow into a pepper. Bell peppers start out as little green fruits and develop into big green fruits. When the pepper looks full and hearty, it’s time for picking; peppers come off the plant easily with a gently upward snap of the hand (but take care not to pull off a branch of foliage when picking the fruit, especially in the fall, when the stems become somewhat brittle and weak). If in doubt, use a cutting tool.
Most bell peppers will grow to a certain set size, and then stop. If left on the plant, these green peppers will turn color and thereby signal their full ripeness. Even regular bell peppers will turn red if left unpicked (especially in the cooler fall weather). Other bell peppers are programmed to turn yellow, orange, red, deep crimson, or even brown when mature.
Picking peppers off of the plant will encourage production of more fruit. When it is not pumping energy and resources into existing fruit, the plant goes into production mode for new fruits. So, in the middle of the summer, it’s probably best to pick your sweet peppers while they’re still green. In September, however, and on into the cooler months, it would be worth your while to wait until your bell peppers turn color, into fully mature and very sweet fruits. I find a fully ripe sweet garden pepper straight from the garden to be a delight of gourmet stature.
Regarding hot peppers, I can’t give you much advice, since we never grow them (thereby adhering to the rule established in the early articles of this series: If you don’t like it, don’t grow it!). For the hot pepper varieties, consult with your gardening centers or go online. However, I have heard that once you grow hot peppers in any given area, any vegetable you grow in that spot (for the indefinite future) will also have a hot pepper taste! So, if you grow hot peppers, it might be a good idea to have a garden space dedicated for growing only them.
Eggplant
Tomato, pepper, and eggplant – this trio constitutes the “nightshade” varieties most commonly grown by home gardeners. It has been said that these varieties need the light of the moon to come to full fruition. The Talmud also talks of various plants that need both sunlight and moonlight to grow properly.
Take note of the unusual flower structure on most eggplants: growing as either twins or triplets, a female flower grows in close proximity to either one or two male flowers. (The flowers are very beautiful, usually white and lilac mixed together.) This makes the pollination job of the bees much easier and works as a kind of failsafe for the eggplant fruit production. The female flower is larger than the male, and you will see that this flower becomes “pregnant” with the fruit, which eventually emerges from within the petals.
Eggplants are also very slow growers and don’t begin to take off until the weather turns hot. Eggplants can be picked at any size; when they reach maturity, they stop growing and will last on the plant for weeks without spoiling – although when they get way overripe, the flesh and the skin get tougher, less sweet, and more bitter. Eggplants will also last for quite a while after picking, especially if they are refrigerated.
Melon
Melons definitely taste best when left to mature on the vine in the hot summer sun. Just as you check for a good melon when shopping in the supermarket (“knock, knock – are you ripe in there?”), so you will judge the ripeness of your garden melons by their overall look, texture, and that wonderful melon smell that comes from within. But beware: melons that get overripe in the garden are a magnet for ants and other critters, which will take advantage of the smallest chink in the melon’s armor and invade within. Cantaloupe and honeydew melons tend to crack when overripe, and this will be a clear invitation to unwanted guests to come and partake of your homegrown fruit.
Radish, Beets and Other Root Crops
Pick these when the top of the radish bulb is poking out of the soil and seems to be the right size for a mature fruit. Ditto for beets. Most root crops do best in the cool weather (except for carrots, which grow best when it’s hot). Overripe radishes and beets become “woody” if left too long in the soil – especially once the weather turns warm. Better to err on the side of caution and pick these crops a little early, rather than to wait for a larger root which in the end will be inedible, being too hard and tough for consumption. If kept cool, all root crops will last a long time after pulling them from the ground.
Besides harvesting the beet root, beet greens are also nutritious, taste great, and look great with their textured leaves and red stalks and veins. (They are very similar to Bright Lites chard.) Don’t pick beet greens until the beets are entirely mature – then the entire plant gets uprooted. See below for how to process garden greens.
Cabbage
Cabbage is an especially beautiful plant, very majestic, with its leaves spreading out in all directions; I find this especially so with purple cabbage. There are many, many varieties of cabbage of different sizes, shapes, colors, textures and time to maturity. However, they all share the same profile that signals they are ready for harvest: Watch for the cabbage to ball up in the middle into a hard mass. When the ball has reached its maximum size, it’s ready for harvesting. Pull out the entire plant and trim away the outside leaves. Most cabbages will be happy to sit in the ground even after they’ve stopped growing; but eventually the ball will split, and then you know you’ve waited a bit too long.
Leafy Greens: Chard, Lettuce, Collard, etc.
Chard is one of our vegetable favorites; it tastes like sweet, non-bitter spinach with the leaves being much, much larger than its spinach cousins. We also grow leaf-lettuce throughout the summer, replacing one crop with another on a regular basis. You know that your chard and leaf lettuce plants are finished producing when they have an alarming growth spurt, shooting up into tall plants with long stalks! This is known as “bolting” or “going-to-seed.” After the plants have bolted, they will flower – but they are done making leaves for your culinary needs.
Until the time of bolting, you can continuously pull the outer leaves off the plant, always leaving enough leaves on the plant to keep the leaf-productionfactory still going. If you pull off all the leaves, you have basically pulled the plug on production. In the cold weather, bolting is delayed; in the hot weather, bolting is accelerated. In either case, you will enjoy a crop of these vegetables.
Since the Torah prohibits us from eating any bugs, all leaves from leafy greens must be checked thoroughly for bugs. Many people don’t want to grow these leafy vegetables for this reason. But it’s really not that difficult to do, and the bonus is that you will have fresh garden greens for your salads and side dishes. Here’s how to check your leaves for bugs:
Step 1: Go to Walmart or Target and buy two white plastic 12”x16” basins (one for holding the washed leaves; one for putting them into after checking). Label them “garden” with a permanent marker.
Step 2: Pull off the leaves from your lettuce or chard and place them into a basin.
Step 3: Fill the basin with cool water (not hot) and swish around the leaves. Repeat twice. Use the bathtub for a quick fill and pour. Let the leaves soak in the last wash for an hour and add a tablespoon of dish detergent to the water. This is because it is nearly impossible to check leaves that are dirty and/or limp. By sitting in the water, the leaves will become clean and turgid (stiff), which greatly facilitates their checking. The detergent causes the bugs to release.
Step 4: Wash the leaves a couple of times again with cool water. Now your leaves are clean and turgid and ready for checking.
Step 5: If you don’t own a light-box, then you must buy one. They sell special small light boxes davka for this purpose, and I don’t think they are that expensive. I am lucky: I have a light box in my art studio that measures 24” x 36” which is used primarily for artwork and tracing – but it’s also great for checking leaves.
Step 6: Pour off the last water wash and check your leaves carefully, front and back, using the light box. You will soon be able to differentiate between dirt, small pieces of vegetation, and bugs. Bugs are the ones with legs; if they don’t have legs, they often have a certain symmetry that dirt is lacking. At any rate, keep a tissue handy to remove any foreign matter from the leaves. Flat leaves are easiest to check; curly leaves are more time consuming – make sure you check into all the nooks and crannies.
If your leaves are still buggy after the above procedure, you can repeat the process two more times. (See the Vaad Hakashrus guidelines for checking leafy greens for bugs.) If you still find bugs after this, then it’s time to dump the leaves. However, I rarely find any bugs after the first set of washes and I am thankful for my mazal in this area.
Broccoli and Cauliflower
You can check broccoli and cauliflower using almost the exact same procedure as described above for leafy greens: Cut the heads into smaller sections and place them into the white basin. Wash the vegetables exactly as described above. After the detergent soaking and the final wash, leave the water in the basin and this time you will be checking the water in the basin for bugs, as opposed to the vegetables themselves. Once again, the procedure can be repeated up to three times. It’s best to grow broccoli and cauliflower in the cold weather; in the warm weather they often get infested with aphids, which are mostly absent when it’s cool. Once again, you should check the Star-K website for the proper checking procedures.
Summer Squash: Zucchini, Yellow Squash and Patty Pan Varieties
Summer squash plants are semi-bush in nature: they do “vine” but very slowly, with one thick vine growing inexorably upwards or outwards. If you are growing these varieties, you have found that the leaves and outward breadth of these plants are truly impressive – with leaves growing up to a foot and a half in circumference and with a single plant reaching out to over six feet in diameter.
And they certainly do know how to produce squash! Prolific producers, even a couple of zucchini plants can keep you rich in squash, with new fruits coming into existence constantly. They are so fruitful that gardeners sometimes don’t know what to do with all the extra squash! I heard a cute story a while back: In an area replete with many gardeners, one farmer put a basket of zucchini on a chair in the front yard with a sign proclaiming, “Please take – Free!” The next day, the basket of zucchini was still there, but the chair was gone!
The first fruits that appear on these modified vines tend to grow to a small size – and then they stop growing, rot, and fall off. Just like the pepper plants, the immature plants can’t support the early fruits, and so they cut them off. However, you can still use these small squashes (only 4” to 6” long and 1” around): Pick them off early and slice them into your salad, steam them, and/or use them in stir fries. They taste just as good as the mature fruits, and therefore they will not go to waste.
As the plant matures, the production machinery goes into high drive, and the squashes grow quickly to large size almost overnight. Everybody has his own opinion as to what is the best zucchini/yellow squash size: some like them young and tender 8” to10”, while others let them grow much larger: 14” to 18”. If you’re not watchful, however, your zucchinis will grow to “baseball bat” size, and eventually, the outer skin becomes too tough to eat and the inner flesh becomes mealy. So, don’t wait too long before harvesting these summer favorites.
As mentioned in an earlier article, summer squash is given this appellation because it does not have a long shelf life, even when refrigerated – usually a maximum of one month after picking (i.e., they are good for the “summer”). For squashes that last much, much longer, we need to turn our attention to winter squash.
Winter Squash: Butternut, Buttercup, Acorn, Spaghetti, etc.
Here at the Cohen household, we love winter squash, and out in the garden, 10 different varieties are growing well, covering fences and other vertical supports as well as vining out onto untilled grassy areas. These squashes last for months into the winter if stored in a cool area (a cool basement will do just fine), and it’s not unusual to have these delicious winter squashes on our dinner table in January and perhaps even later than that. The sweet and textured orange and yellow flesh of these squashes makes them delicacies in our family.
Winter squashes will stop growing once they reach maturity; for best taste, wait until they have ripened on the vine before picking them. For example, wait until the butternut squash has turned pinkish-tan before taking it off the vine; leave a little bit of the stem attached to the fruit for best preservation. For other squashes, you have to know what they look like when ripe; if you’re not sure, go online or check the pictures in the seed catalogues.
Generally, winter squashes will not spoil by sitting outside on the vine even for extended periods. The longer these squashes stay on the vine and mature (even off the vine), the better the taste that develops within. We marvel at the quality of the fruits that have been maturing for three to four months, when they finally reach our Shabbos and Yom Tov table.
Hatzlacha rabba, bon appetit, and may all your picks be good ones!â—†
Have you missed earlier articles in this series? Write to Avraham Cohen at avcograph@aol.com and I will send them to you.
