Depends what you mean by ‘maturing’. If you are freaking botanically, all leafy and root vegetables are eaten before maturity because in their case maturity is setting seed and by that time most are inedible. Most fruiting plants are also eaten before maturity because at true maturity they would be over ripe and falling off the plants.

eta I’m not going to correct the typo. It’s more fun than ‘speaking’.

I’ve been accused of freaking botanically...or was that freaking botanical.,.

tj

Green beans (snap beans) are harvested before maturity. Shelling beans are not.

Yes, I forgot about dry pulses. Also nuts and seeds.

A better phrasing might be what is better left to mature rather than be eaten immature?

Winter squashes should be allowed to reach full maturity. That's when they also do their tougher skins and such that makes them better for storage than tender summer squashes that are often tastiest when eaten immature.

Dry beans or plants like sunflowers and eating-seed pumpkins should be allowed to fully mature. You are wanting the fully mature seed production there.

Many peppers that are often utilized green are also great to use fully mature. A great many of them turn from green to other colors. An example is jalapeños- most often eaten green, but are also tasty when red and mature. The sugars kick up and the raw heat mellow a bit. Chipotle peppers are fully red mature jalapeños that get smoke dried.

Garlic, shallots, and onions might also count for fully mature- as in with the bulbs/heads.

Other than that, most other veggies are better picked immature. Tomatoes when they are blushing rather than fully ripe on the vine. Greens, brassicas, and a lot of roots. Green beans and peas. Cukes, melons.

A bunch of stuff is cut and come again, and part of the point is keeping it trimmed/picked/pruned. Greens and lettuce, chives, onion and garlic greens till the bulbs are spent. Many herbs.

Thanks! Why are tomatoes better picked immature? I did not know that.

There are better tomato folks than I here. To be basic, at some point in ripeness, it benefits neither the fruit nor the plant to leave it on the plant. Ripe comes before maturity (as in seed making and no longer so good for eating for most tastes- tomatoes can finish ripening off the vine. Blushing or breaking stage is often used as the earliest to pick off the plant.

Like many other plants, picking the fruits before the seeds are actually set often signals to the plant it needs to keep producing fruits.

Also, personally I've found that picking ripe and blushing rather than full on ripe off the vine helps prevent skin cracking at the wrong moment.

I'll leave my tomatoes to ripen as much as 75% before picking, maybe just 50% if a heavy rain is expected as my heirlooms are thin skinned and will split open with excess watering or too much rain.

I commented on the tomatoes in the other post you've got going. Always leave winter squash on the vine to fully ripen/mature. I always pick fruit, including melons, at full ripeness (though admittedly it can be tricky to tell with watermelons). Lots of stuff can be picked when young/immature -- eggplant, green beans, summer squash.