test
School House About Robbins Farm Arlington Agriculture Veggie Lifecycles Growing Patterns Vegetable Familes Garden Bugs Basic Garden Tools Photo Synthesis Robbins Farm Garden Blog

Time to Harvest

Most garden vegetables take about 60 days (or two months) to grow from a seed to an edible plant. Some veggies, like radishes, have a much shorter growing cycle. (It takes less than a month from the time that the seed is planted until a radish is full-size.) Other veggies, like onions, take over 3 months to grow to their full size from seeds.

Here is a chart showing the length of time to harvest for some commonly-grown vegetables.

Veggies' times to harvest
Note: These are estimates based on averages from seed catalogs. The actual time to harvest may vary.

Early Harvesting

Many veggies can be harvested from the garden when they are young. Some veggies (like lettuce, carrots and onions) can be planted very close together and thinned (picking every other one) as they grow. These thinnings are very tender and tasty — a special treat!

Leafy plants (like parsley and kale) can also be harvested a leaf at a time, leaving the plant in the ground to continue growing. This allows gardeners to have a longer harvest from the same plants, and is more efficient than replanting them from seed.

Determinate vs. Indeterminate growing patterns

Veggies like tomatoes have been bred two different ways. One way is to have their fruit ripen over a short period of time. These varieties are called determinate. The other way is to have their fruit ripen over a long period of time. These varieties are called indeterminate.

Having both determinate and indeterminate varieties of tomatoes gives a gardener options. If you like to seal your tomatoes in jars to store for later, determinate varieties are better because you can do this all at once. If you like to have a smaller number of tomatoes every week, then indeterminate varieties are best.

More