Knowing when to pick the crop and how to store the excess for future use calls for as much know-how as the actual growing process. Having said that, I should quit.

The individual description for each berry and vegetable found in the majority of gardening books tell us when we should harvest each at its peak of tenderness and sweetness. Probably the best test of all is to pick a few and taste them for ourselves.

Picked too soon, vegetables and berries may lose not just size but also sweetness. You might find the resulting taste tart, bitter, or simply not flavorful. If you wait too long, you may sacrifice flavor or texture, or both. The sugar of peas and sweet com turn to starch, beans become stringy, beets woody, and berries mushy for example. Some vegetables even stop producing if their crop is not regularly harvested.

Home-grown vegetables and berries have the kind of flavor you can't buy in a store-especially when you get them to the table immediately after picking. If you have more than you can eat, though you may want to store the surplus.

The object of storage is to keep the vegetable aging slowly. In storage the process of aging uses the vegetable's stored food; the faster this stored food is used, the faster the quality of the vegetable's flavor and texture declines. As aging continues the vegetable rots. Vegetables and berries differ in the storage conditions needed to keep them in prime shape. Each vegetable has certain needs to store and you should contact the County Extension Office in either Willcox or Sierra Vista and learn what these needs are. To enjoy vegetables and berries from your garden all year long, preserve them.