Perfect Timing

Perfect Timing

Identifying Peak Ripeness and Harvest Readiness
Lesson: 2.19
Level:
Beginner
Station: Soil Management
Format: Experiment
Rating:
2.19-perfect-timing

Lesson Overview

You haven't had a tomato until you've pulled one from the vine, wipe it on your shirt, and bit into it right there in the garden. It a taste unlike anything from the store and this lesson will prove that to students through a head-to-head taste test.

Goals

  • Describe “peak ripeness” in terms of flavor
  • Identify harvest readiness for various varieties

Outcomes

Students will taste varieties in pairs, comparing store bought to Edible Learning Lab grown in order to taste the difference between “peak ripeness” and “picked early for transport”.

Teaching Primer

peak ripenessPeak ripeness!

Shouldn’t that be the goal for every farmer, gardener, and backyard green thumb? Plants aspire for peak ripeness. If you understand the life cycle you can then identify when each variety is entering its ripeness stage. Some change colors, others plump up. And, of course, there is always the tried and true taste test. What could be simpler!

But most kids, and adults for that matter, are completely unaware of what a perfectly ripened – vine ripened at that – tomato should taste like. They’ve never tasted the sweet, creamy, nuttiness of mache or the peppery sting of mustard greens. Yet both are enjoyed worldwide.

So to understand peak ripeness is to taste it. Once you taste a perfectly ripened tomato, that pink mealy flesh of the red orb in the grocery store will be seen as something else. It’s certainly not a tomato at peak ripeness.

Teach the Teacher

Tools & Materials

  • Store bought samples for the variety being harvested in the Lab
  • Cutting board
  • Knife

Vocabulary

  • Peak ripeness
  • Vine ripened
  • Ethylene
  • Brix-Acid ratio

Method

Introduction (5 minutes)

Begin the lesson by describing what ripeness is. Give examples like a yellow banana or a red tomato. Then explain the concept of peak ripeness as that point where fruits and vegetables no longer ripen but rather begin to break down. This is where the food is at its very best.

Activity (20 minutes)

Prepare a comparison taste test for a variety that you are preparing to harvest by tasting it alongside a store bought sample. For example, if you are harvesting carrots from the Raised Planters, prepare a test taste with an offering of a similar variety from the local grocer. Have the kids taste the two samples and comment on their experience.

Discussion (10 minutes)

Which one do you like better? Why? What is different about the one we grew?

Assessment (10 minutes)

Use the following questions to assess the Students before and after the lesson. Tally the responses of the group in the Assessment Tracking Log for comparison:

  • By a show of hands, how many of you can tell when a fruit or vegetable is perfectly ripened?
  • Now that you know how to identify peak ripeness, how many of you think you could do so on your own?

Related Lessons

Give the Intermediate or Advanced lessons a try now that you’ve completed the Beginner Lesson!

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