GENERALLY, we want earlier harvests. After all, soon we’ll have little left in store, and fresh will be expensive until the new produce starts coming in. Now, each crop takes a given amount of time to mature. Breeders have worked on this, and almost all crops have faster and slower maturing varieties – these are usually referred to as ‘earlies’ and ‘lates’ or ‘maincrops’.
But, of course, there is a trade-off: the varieties bred to be early seldom give the same sort of yields as the slower lates or maincrops, so generally it’s best to grow both. Worse, sometimes to get an earlier crop, sacrifices are made in flavour, sweetness or texture. Very rarely are the earliest varieties the very finest! However, they are good enough, and all the more…
