Days to Maturity

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Also known as “Days to Harvest,” “Maturation Period,” or “Lifecycle” of vegetable plants.

The Days to Maturity measurement tells us how long it will take before our vegetables can be harvested. Your seed supplier probably notes the Days to Maturity in their catalogues, on their website, and (less commonly) on the packets themselves.

Knowing the Days to Maturity is really useful in garden planning. It can help us to determine how many harvests of succession crops we can expect from our growing season. It can alert us to an upcoming empty space in our gardens after an early harvest (and what short-season veggies might fill its place). And it can tell us whether our season is long enough for tropical long-season veggies like tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers.

To make sure the Days to Maturity number is as useful as possible to you, there are two nuances that are important to understand:

Firstly, the Days to Maturity number provided by your seed supplier is based on ideal growing conditions. Your plants will take longer to mature if they have less-than-ideal growing conditions. (And spoiler alert: this is almost always the case.)

Suboptimal temperatures, light exposure, and nutrition, as well as stress from pests, disease, weeds, and transplant shock, will all have an impact on plant growth. So while it is useful, you should use the Days to Maturity as a guide rather than a guarantee.

Secondly, there are two ways to count the Days to Maturity:

• For crops that are started indoors early (like tomatoes), the day they are transplanted out is usually Day 1

• For crops that are direct-sown outdoors (like radishes), the day their first two true leaves appear is usually Day 1.

In the case of the latter, add about two weeks to the number of estimated Days to Maturity when planning, to account for the time it will take the true leaves to appear. Keeping records and building flexibility into your plan are key for getting your timing right.

By the way, The first leaves to appear after germination are called cotyledons. Almost all cotyledons look the same, no matter what the plant is. True leaves appear about 1-3 weeks after the cotyledons. You’ll recognize them because they’ll be the same shape as the plant’s mature leaves but in an adorable baby size!

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