Do vegetables ripen like fruit?
This may be a silly question, but I've never seen an unripe vegetable. Is the growing of a vegetable different from a fruit's? I could pick a carrot up from the dirt whenever, and eat it, but I would never do that to a strawberry.
Also, is it dangerous to eat particular vegetables (potatoes, I believe) before they're fully grown?
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Fruits are parts of plants that contain seeds (apples, tomatoes, cucumbers, peepers, okra, lemons). What people consider ripe fruit is not always related to the botanical ripeness (the seeds are mature and ready to be dispersed)
Vegetables are all the other parts of plants that we eat
Vegetables do not ripen, they just grow. Many plants are better tasting and more edible at certain times in their growth cycle, but this is generally based on your culture and preference, there are no firm rules. Very few plants change from being poisonous to be edible during their growth cycle
All fruits and vegetables begin to decay the day they are harvested. In some fruits this is to their taste advantage, in most vegetables this is not. Fruits that are picked before they are ripe may improve in flavour and texture over a few days of suitable storage
In most cases fruit and vegetable nutritional profiles decay from the day they are harvested
Vegetables don't ripen. Carrots, potatoes, leafy greens, etc...
They will get bigger of course and some veggies will get more bitter or woody with age. Greens will get bitter.
Generally speaking veggies are better young. Carrots are particularly sweet and tender when young. Potatoes are also perfectly fine at any size.
The possible exceptions would be the fruits that are labelled vegetables for cooking purposes like some squashes and tomatoes. These do need to be ripe and whether they can be ripened after picking will depend on the plant.
Surprisingly, this is more of a gardening question than a cooking question. While ripening isn't the word you'd use (that applies pretty strictly to fruit), some vegetables, especially greens, go through a process called bolting, which is basically the intermediate stage between edible greens and going to seed. Usually you don't want to eat what results. Lettuce is particularly bad about this in hot weather -- once the stem starts developing, the leaves turn sort of fern-like and very bitter, and the plant fills with latex. Needless to say, unless you're trying to torture a head of roots-on hydro lettuce, this will seldom be a concern in the kitchen.
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