Hi michelelc, Farmerdill has it dialed in, but for us newbies, that thing could start bolting at any minute (because of the heat/lateness etc etc) , If you want to eat some of your cabbage, I would pick NOW, just to be on the safe side, this year sucked for me with my cabbage harvest , I lost 1500 pounds (though it made awesome compost materials), due to bolting/not completely heading up. Here are a couple of pics to show what I mean, at first it looked like it was going to head up, but alas, it bolted ;-( Every bed in the background is about to be tossed onto the compost pile ;-( What it should look like:

The cob should fill out the shuck in a well rounded, firm but not hard fashion assuming the corn has had all the nutrients and water it needs. The size of the ear and the kernels will vary from variety to variety. If the silk are "just starting to turn brown" I'd give it a couple more days but that it hard to say without actually seeing it. So where is it DTM-wise and what size ears is your variety supposed to produce? When inexperienced the best way may be to peel an ear and look at it. Dave

When they turn red or orange or yellow.....depending on what the final color is suppose to be they are ready. If you are saving seeds you could leave them on an extra week to make sure they are totally ripe.

This has been established that once tomato turns color, the rest of ripening process is internal to the fruit and needs not any help from the mother plant. A lot of gardeners harvest their tomatoes once color change occurs. They do this for several reasons : --- rainy period ahead , to prevent spoilage. . --- birds and other culprits eat/damage them. --- Tomato variety is prone to splitting and cracking if left on vine long time. After harvesting, just store them single layer on newspaper , AWAY from direct light, in room temperature. If you be careful in picking and not blemishing them, those tomatoes can last for days if not weeks or until you consume them after changing full color.