When will my vegetables be ready to harvest?

Questions about this information? Contact us. February 23, 2015

Updated from an original article written by Ron Goldy.

“My vegetables are in flower, how long before the fruit will be ready to harvest?” This is a question often asked by many vegetable growers and it is not always an easy answer.

Most fruiting vegetables require successful pollination for fruit development. Some are self-pollinated while others are aided by wind or insects. Self-pollinated crops are those where flowers are designed so that the pollen pollinates the flower that produced it. Some legume crops have this system and in some cases pollination occurs before the flowers even open. Other pollination systems are more open (cross or open-pollinated) and even though pollen from the same flower can successfully pollinate the flower, pollen from other flowers on the same plant, or plants of the same species, can be carried between flowers by wind or insects.

Cross-pollinated systems can have male and female flower parts in the same flower (perfect flowers) or they can have separate male and female flowers on the same plant, or plants can have all male or all female flowers. These systems are designed for the freer exchange of genetic material between plants of the same species. Common vegetables having separate male and female flowers on the same plant are cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and other cucurbits and sweet corn. Asparagus is a good example of a vegetable where each plant has either all male or all female flowers.

Pollen designed to be carried by insects is generally large and heavy, while pollen carried by wind is light and may even have “wings” to help it be caught and carried greater distances. Wind-pollinated crops also produce huge amounts of pollen (think pine trees here). Flowers that are aided by insect pollination will benefit from having bee hives brought into the field during the flowering phase.

Robert Westfield wrote a good review article on vegetable crop pollination titled “Pollination of Vegetable Crops.” The article has a table, which I’ve included below, on the general times required from flowering to harvestable fruit. These time periods are only general and can be affected by temperature and other climate conditions, but it does give a general timeframe that some will find helpful.

Approximate time from pollination to market maturity under warm growing conditions. From “Pollination of Vegetable Crops” by Robert Westerfield, University of Georgia.

Vegetable	Time to market maturity (days)
Bean	7-10
Corn	18-23
Cucumber, pickling (0.75-1 inch diameter)	4-5
Cucumber, pickling (2 inch diameter)	8-10
Cucumber, slicing	15-18
Eggplant (maximum size)	25-40
Muskmelon	42-46
Okra	4-6
Pepper, green stage (about maximum size)	45-55
Pepper, red stage	60-70
Pumpkin, Connecticut Field	80-90
Pumpkin, Big Max	120
Pumpkin, Small Sugar	65-75
Squash, summer, Crookneck	6-7¹
Squash, summer, Early Prolific Straightneck	5-6¹
Squash, summer, Scallop	4-5¹
Squash, summer, Zucchini	3-4¹
Squash, winter, Banana	70-80
Squash, winter, Boston Marrow	60-70
Squash, winter, Buttercup	60-70
Squash, winter, Butternut	60-70
Squash, winter, Golden Delicious	60-70
Squash, winter, Hubbard	80-90
Squash, winter, Table Queen or Acorn	55-60
Tomato, mature green stage	35-42
Tomato, red ripe stage	45-60
Watermelon	42-45

¹ To attain a weight of 0.25-0.5 lbs.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).