Small is beautiful!

[veggiechicken]

Small is beautiful, tender and sweet; Big can be hard, tough and, though it may look impressive its not so pleasing to the palate or decorative on the plate!

I can hear you muttering, what is she on about now, that daft chicken.

I'm talking about the ideal size to pick vegetables. In the past, I've left beans, courgettes, carrots, leeks, mangetout etc to grow BIG, as BIG as they could - What a whopper size. This year, I'm picking early, slim baby beans, fat finger sized courgettes, teeny weeny carrots.
The more you pick the more will grow. Courgettes, beans and peas will keep on producing as their aim in life is to set seed. Pick their immature babies and they have to start all over again.
Whilst carrots and other root veg may be one-offs, if you aim to pick them small, they can be sown closer together and you may end up with just as heavy a crop - and it will all be delicious.
The longer a plant is in the ground, the more vulnerable it is to pests and bolting. (Page 47 of VC's book of Gardening wisdom).

At what stage do you pick your veggies?

[chillithyme]

I like to pick baby beetroot, they take less time to cook and are sweeter to me I sow thickly and thin out as I pick the roots to harvest, leaving the rest to grow on.

I normally pick beans when they are young but am trying italian borlotti beans given to me by a neighbour for the first time and will be leaving them to dry on the plant.

My spinach bolts quickly so I have to pick young and fast

[Mr Bones]

I'm another fan of young and sweet veg, especially courgettes. They seem to have only so much flavour per courgette, the bigger the fruit the more the flavour is spread out.

@ Chillithyme, it's worth cooking a few Borlotties as flat pods too, they're superb.

[Snoop Puss]

I try and pick when veg are young and tender. All apart from toms, which I like as ripe as they can get. Oh, and lettuce. I still have difficulty gauging when is the right time to pick lettuce (is the heart big enough or not?) and lose quite a few, as they bolt.

[Bren In Pots]

Like Snoop its only toms that I let ripen everything else gets picked when I want to eat it. A leaf from each kale plant soon makes a meal, finger sized runner beans, baby lettuce leaves and tiny courgettes that make the plant produce more.
To me growing large veg is fine for shows i just want something on my plate

[Small pumpkin]

I’m some & some. Carrots I like to get to a half decent size. But judging that is tricky so I’m happy with what ever comes out of the ground. Happy to pick small courgettes, broad beans, runner beans, turnips, swede & beetroot. But then I’m still quite happy to pick monsters that have been over looked. The occasional courgette turns into a marrow, the odd swede the size of a small football.

[Penellype]

I pick peas and beans when small as peas go starchy and beans can be tough and stringy when bigger. I try to pick other things small but things like beetroot and courgettes tend to get away from me. I am trying to learn to pick the smaller ones if some get too big, but the tendency is to eat the larger ones so they don't go to waste, and then the small ones end up too big as well...

[Jungle Jane]

I pick them small,they’re all small so there’s no choice picking encourages more to grow,potatoes are different I leave them as long as I can,till the leaves look terribly used,then I know they’ll be big potatoes rather than tiny ones,it’s difficult knowing when some things are ready if you can’t see them,the leaves talk to us

[Sweet savory]

I generally prefer small. however this year I grew snow wind mangetout and missed some so they grew into proper peas. Actually prefer them as proper peas. Very tasty

[Peteyd]

Like many other it would seem, I try to pick early. My favourite way of cooking courgettes is to pike them when they are about the size of a fat middle finger, cut them into pound coin sized slices and fry them slowly with garlic until soft and tender.

I always have a crafty taste of the first baby veg of the season right on my mini-plot, that first burst of sweetness is hard to beat.