When to Pick

To get the most vitamins out of vegetables, pick them in late afternoon and eat them before dark the same day. Such is the advice to Victory Gardeners given by Dr. Mary Elizabeth Reid, of the U.S. Public Health Service and National Institute of Health, in the Journal of The New York Botanical Garden. Tests show that even on the vine vegetables may lose as much as 25% of their vitamins after the sun goes down.

Department of Agriculture experts have lately made some special studies of this subject, learned that "light has a remarkable effect upon the accumulation of vita min C."

Some of their findings:

> Vegetables lose part of their vitamin C content not only at night but on cloudy days.

> Greenhouse plants grown during the months of May and June have twice as much vitamin C as those grown in December and January.

> Fruit on the shaded side of a tree has less vitamin C than that on the sunny side.

> Besides vitamins, shaded plants apparently also lose some starches, sugars, proteins and minerals.

> Silkworms grow fatter on mulberry leaves picked at dusk. Cattle do better if pastured in late afternoon rather than in the morning.

Concludes Dr. Reid: For good vitamin C values the harvesting of vegetables should not be done before mid-forenoon, say 10 o'clock, after a spell of clear weather; after a cloudy spell, not till late in the day.

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