For a lot of crops, yes -- things like summer squash, green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, or really any crop where the edible part is the immature fruit and where the crop can continue to produce if kept picked. Ideally for best eating quality and to promote continued production, all of these crops should be harvested before the seeds inside the developing fruit start to develop.

Peppers are sort of "optional" in this group -- you'll get more green peppers if you keep them picked, but of course, many of us want fully mature peppers that are orange, red, or yellow. It does cut down a bit on production, but its a worthwhile trade off to get the ripened peppers.

Thank you for your help! Is there a list on the net somewhere of wich plants are BEST harvested when/how?

I am zone 6,most of my veggies are container grown.(live in the city/limited space)

It's basically just common sense -- pick them when they taste best. Pick green beans before the seeds get too big and the pod is coarse. Pick eggplants, squash, etc. before the fruits get soft and split. Pick cucumbers before they get big and turn yellow and bitter. If you pick everything when it looks like it does in the grocery store, you won't go wrong.

Why don't you tell us exactly what you are growing and then we can offer picking tips. Otherwise it would be really difficult to make up a chart of "pick when ____" since what makes a particular vegetable ready to pick varies greatly from garden to garden and gardener to gardener.

For example, most prefer to pick zucchini and summer squash when it is still young and only 6-8" long and has few seeds but some want to wait for them to get baseball bat size. :)

Dave

A big realisation for me was that if tomatoes are picked after 'blush', they will fully ripen in a cupboard.
Same goes for chillies/peppers.
I still think fruit tastes better left on the plant, but that may be based on expectation, rather than reality...

Dave,
I am growing sweet pepper(candy sweets and carnival mix)/green bell peppers(giant green bells),several variety of tomatoes(beefsteak,vine,cherries and big boys),summer squashes(zucs,cukes,crookedneck/straightneck and eggplant)peas and pole beans.Strawberries are in pots and some in hanging baskets.Plus a few herbs........ Chives,cilantro/coriander, spearmint,catnip,roman chammomile,purple coneflower(echinacea purpea) and basil.All are in containers. Chammomile,catnip,corriander/cilantro and basil are also direct seeded into the soil in my front beds.