Winter Gardening Tips: When to Harvest your Vegetables

by Ellen in Instructional / 02.05.09

Knowing when and how to harvest your winter vegetables is definitely a skill that is eventually learned through trial and error. Getting the right taste has everything to do with when the vegetable is harvested. I hope to provide you with a few tips that should make the process easier. This winter, I am growing mustard greens, lettuce (3 types), broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, cilantro, lemon balm and mint. I will focus primarily on lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, cilantro and parsley in this article.

In general, vegetables should be harvested just before they are ripe. This way, you prevent pests from getting a taste of the finished product, as well the risk of the produce rotting out. For example, mature lettuce needs to be picked early or else the weight of the mature leaf will become heavy and droop towards the ground. When the leaf comes in contact with the ground, it starts to break down. The same is true for other leafy vegetables, like mustard and collard greens.

Further, vegetables will go to seed if you do not continually harvest. When a vegetable goes to seed, it will start to grow flowers and the plant changes directions and becomes focused on producing seeds vs. crop. When this happens, the crop becomes bitter. Below is a photograph of my Romaine lettuce plant that recently went to seed (or ‘bolted’ as it is called with lettuce). It happened so quickly and I am hoping that I can reverse it out. The little green bundles growing on top of the stalks (top right in photo) are the flowers that produce the seed

When it comes to harvesting a vegetable like broccoli, cut the stalk when it becomes 5 to 6 inches. This will stimulate the side stalks to grow and you can continue harvesting for several weeks. When head starts to separate and little yellow flowers begin to grow, the plant has gone to seed. Here is what broccoli looks like when it goes to seed:

I have been keeping an eye on this broccoli stalk and am very close to cutting it:

Cauliflower should be harvested while the curd is firm before it becomes grainy and “ricey” and before the curd or florets begin to separate. When picking garden cauliflower, leave a row of leaves around the curd to prolong storage quality. Before eating both broccoli and cauliflower make sure that you rid it of pests. The easiest way to do this is to soak it in a warm water and white vinegar mixture. Here is an example of a cauliflower that is ready to harvest:

The good news is that parsley and cilantro are hearty plants that grow very big and bushy and do not need to be harvested as frequently. The only thing that you need to keep a close watch on is frost but otherwise they are very resilient plants. You can see in the photograph below how the parsley and cilantro start to all grow together: