The Garden · Glassboro, NJ · Zone 7a
Growing guides written while the job is actually happening, not remembered a season later. Every step gets a photo of the real thing, including the ugly parts.
Guides
Two jobs happening in the garden right now. Both guides tell you the exact signal to wait for, then what to do with your hands.
Wait for the back of the head, not the petals. The general method first, then what changes for a Mammoth and what changes for a dwarf branching plant, because those two ripen nothing alike.
Seed saving · AugustThe seed is a small arrowhead hiding at the base of every petal. Pull one petal and you will know in two seconds whether the whole head is ready.
More guides get added here as the season turns them up.
About
Most growing advice tells you what to do and skips the part where you decide whether it is time. That is the only hard part. A head that looks finished from the front can be three weeks out.
So every guide here leads with the signal. What you are looking at, what it looks like when it is ready, and what it looks like when it is not. Then the steps.
Photos are of my own plants, taken while doing the job. Where a guide gives a number, it comes from a university extension service or a seed-saving organization, and the source is linked at the bottom of the page.
Glassboro, New Jersey. USDA zone 7a. Heavy clay that I have been arguing with for years.