How Do You Pick the Perfect Moment to Harvest Ripe Cucumbers?

If you've never grown your own cucumbers before, you're in for a treat. They're way more delicious than store-bought, but spotting green fruits amidst all those lush cucumber leaves can be harder than locating Waldo. That's one of the reasons I prefer to grow vining cucumbers vertically. Fruits are held in place on the trellis and therefore super easy to spot.

Cucumbers need at least 50 to 70 days to produce. We're growing these plants for their delicious fruits, and fruit is one of the very last steps in a plant's life cycle. Once your plants start producing, a cucumber can go from underdeveloped to sun-ripened to over-mature and inedible in a matter of days. So stay on top of the harvesting. Check your plants daily so that you don't miss your window for the best flavor and perfect crisp texture.

So how do you know when fruits are in that window? There are 3 signs to look for.

The Cucumber Fruit Is the Right Size

Your cucumber will be at its vine-ripened peak of flavor and nutrition when it reaches the expected length written on the back of your seed packet. Depending on the cucumber type you're growing, your fruit might be ripe at 2 inches or 18 inches.

Gherkins and other pickling cucumbers are typically nice and crunchy as soon as they're just 1½ inch long and best if harvested before they reach 4 inches.

Slicing cucumbers and burpless varieties are best when harvested between 6 and 8 inches long.

English cucumbers are ripe when they're between 10 and 18 inches long.

Armenian cucumbers can grow a whopping 36 inches long, but you'll want to harvest them before they get over 18 inches for the best flavor.

Overall, homegrown cucumbers are best harvested when they're on the smaller side. That's when their flesh is the sweetest and their seeds are most tender.

The Skin Is Firm & Green

A nice, ripe cucumber will be firm and deep green—or yellow or light green (like the poona kheera cucumber below) or white or brown if you're growing one of the many fun varieties. Peak firmness is typically about 8 to 10 days after the female flower opens up to be pollinated.

Frost Is on the Way

If you're expecting the first frost of fall, well, then—ready or not!—it's time to harvest all your cucumbers and remove the plants from your garden. Underdeveloped cucumbers won't continue to ripen or sweeten once they're picked, but you can still enjoy them.

Plan ahead when you're a couple weeks out from your first expected frost. What you can do is prune all the baby fruits that won't have time to ripen on the vine so that your plant has more energy to finish larger fruits by the end of the season. You can also top the plants off by pruning any stems growing above the fruit. Again, this tells the plant to hurry up already and ripen the last fruits.

What's the Best Way to Harvest Cucumbers?

Your little cukes will be at their sweetest if you come out to harvest in the morning, before the heat of the day kicks in. Make sure to wear gloves if you're growing a prickly cucumber. Using a clean pair of pruners, cut the stem about an inch above the fruit. Leave the stem attached to the fruit to prevent rotting after harvest.

You might be tempted to just tug or twist the fruits free, but you risk damaging the fragile stems.

The fruits themselves are pretty fragile, as well, especially long burpless cucumbers. Place them gently in your harvest basket to avoid bruising them.

If you must harvest in the heat of midday, give your cucumbers a quick bath in cold water so they're "cool as a cucumber" once more. This extra step helps them last longer and taste better.

Do Cucumbers Continue to Ripen After Harvest?

Unlike tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers don't keep ripening once they're picked. Don't let that stop you from harvesting your fruits early if frost is on the way or if critters are stealing all your goods. Cucumbers are edible at any stage of development, even if they wouldn't yet be considered ripe.

What Happens If You Leave a Cucumber on the Vine Too Long?

It's always best to harvest something the minute it's ready, even if it's much smaller than the produce you're used to seeing at the grocery store. The goal when growing cucumbers is to keep your plants well picked so they continue producing for you. That means harvesting early and often—perhaps as often as every day or every other day.

If you leave a cucumber on the vine too long, two things happen. One, the plant will spend all its resources maintaining that mature fruit instead of producing new fruits, which is a bummer. And two, the fruit might start to yellow, which means it's past its prime (orange fruits are well past their prime). The seeds inside will be fuller, and the fruit might taste more bitter. Here's an overripe cucumber I left on the vine a little too long.

How Many Cucumbers Can You Harvest from One Plant?

It depends on the cucumber variety you're growing, but you can typically expect to get anywhere from 10 to 20 fruits per plant. So if you want to harvest a lot of cucumbers, you'll need to grow several plants. My family is big on cucumbers, so I grow 6 cucumber plants per person.

How to Use Up All Your Cucumbers

I'm not into canning or pickling, but fresh cucumbers, unfortunately, don't enjoy the longest shelf life. (That's your excuse to make mojitos tonight, okay?)

Here are some of my favorite ways to use up large cucumber harvests:

• Quick-pickle them with some green onions.
• Try this fun fish-free twist on sushi from PlantYou. The cucumber becomes the vehicle for the rice and other yummy fillings.
• Make Martha Stewart's Thai cucumber salad.
• Throw together Joshua McFadden's cucumber salad with toasted walnuts, mint, and vinegar-spiked yogurt dressing.
• Blend your own high-fiber cucumber apple smoothie.
• Try smuice, my beloved smoothie/juice hybrid.
• Make cucumber sandwiches.
• Whip up homemade tzatziki.
• Slice 'em up, put 'em over your eyes, and give yourself a spa day. You earned it!

One thing to keep in mind as you're preparing your cucumbers is that the highest nutrition is actually found in the skin.

How to Store Cucumbers from the Garden

Unless you're pickling them, homegrown cucumbers are best enjoyed as fresh as possible. The thinner the skin, the shorter the shelf life.

You can keep cucumbers wrapped in a paper towel inside a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of your fridge for about 3 to 5 days before they lose most of their moisture content. Be careful when you're storing your little cukes to avoid bruising them. Sliced cucumbers should also be put in a plastic bag or airtight container in the fridge and used within a day or two.

If you'll be enjoying your cucumbers in the next couple of days, you can keep them somewhere cool, dry, and out of direct sunlight.

Cucumbers are about 90% water, so it's hard to freeze them and then thaw them without ending up with a soggy mess unless you take some extra precautions.

How to Freeze Cucumbers

You can freeze sliced cucumbers but not whole ones. Freeze the cucumber slices in a single layer on a cookie sheet first before transferring them to a bag for long-term storage in the freezer. You can also pickle them or puree them and then freeze them.

Enjoy the Sweetest Cucumber Harvest Ever!

Your garden-fresh cucumbers will taste out of this world compared to their grocery store counterparts! They're one of my favorite things to harvest from the garden. Enjoy them and then head right back outside tomorrow to check for more!