To harvest means to gather crops from fields when they're ripe and ready to eat. Every fall, farmers harvest corn, wheat, pumpkins, and other plants they've spent months growing.

Harvesting requires careful timing. Pick too early and the food isn't ready; wait too long and it might rot or be eaten by animals. A wheat farmer watches the fields carefully, waiting for that moment when the grain turns golden and the kernels are firm. Then combines roll through the fields, cutting and gathering tons of wheat in a single day.

The word also means gathering anything you've worked to produce. Marine biologists harvest samples from the ocean to study. A writer harvests ideas from their experiences. You might harvest rainwater in barrels or harvest energy from solar panels.

People celebrate harvests because they represent months of hard work finally paying off. In the United States, Thanksgiving is often connected with harvest festivals, when people celebrate gathering enough food to survive the winter. After all that planting, watering, weeding, and waiting, harvest time is when you finally get to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor.