Articles Index

Growing Rhubarb
Is rhubarb a vegetable? A fruit? An ornamental plant? It’s a very ornamental vegetable that is usually prepared and eaten much like a fruit. All that and it’s perennial in many areas. Rhubarb is a cool season crop that is grown for its fibrous leaf stalks, which are a wonderful sweet-tart treat. These tips should help you get your rhubarb started right and growing well.

Growing Brussels Sprouts
Brussels Sprouts are a long season crop that actually tastes better when hit with a slight frost. So although they are a late harvest, they are a relatively long one. Because of their fondness for cool weather, Brussels Sprouts are a fall crop in warmer climates. Here are more tips for growing Brussels sprouts.

How to Choose Pumpkins to Carve or Pumpkins for Cooking
The choice between carving pumpkins and cooking pumpkins is actually very practical. When choosing a carving pumpkin, you’re looking for a nice shape and a pumpkin that will last several days, once carved. The choice of a cooking pumpkin is all about taste and texture. Here are some tips for choosing the right pumpkin to carve or cook.

How to Dry or Cure Gourds
Ornamental gourds grow as easily as zucchini. But unlike zucchini, there is no limit to what you can do with gourds. By drying ornamental gourds, you can keep them intact indefinitely. Drying gourds is an easy process, but it takes time. Here’s all you need to know about how to dry gourds.

How to Grow Cabbage and Kale
Cabbage and kale are among the hardiest and most nutritious vegetables a home gardener can grow. They are also very easy to grow, especially for home vegetable gardeners in cooler climates. Beautiful, in shades of pale yellow to wrinkled steel blue and ranging in flavor from sweet and crisp to tangy, cabbage and kale are versatile vegetables and there’s a variety suited to almost every garden.

Growing Spinach
Leafy vegetables always taste better fresh from the garden. Spinach, like lettuce, grows best in the cool weather of spring and fall. Spinach also grows extremely quickly, which means you don’t have to wait long to enjoy it, but you’ll also have to keep planting new spinach to extend the harvest. Getting spinach to grow is easy. Keeping your spinach growing takes some finesse. Tips for growing spinach in the home garden.

Growing Onions
Growing onions takes patience, since all the action takes place under ground. If you can provide a rich soil and a full day of sun, you can grow a good sized harvest of onions for eating fresh and storing for later. And as with most fresh vegetables, onions from the garden will have far more flavor than onions from the produce aisle. Home grown onions can be more pungent too. Here are some tips for choosing and growing the right onions for your home garden.

Cool Season Vegetable Gardening
Cool weather vegetable gardening offers many advantages, not the least of which is the colorful choice of crops that can be grown, like 'Bright Lights' chard, ‘Red Russian’ Brussels sprouts, ‘Osaka Purple’ mustard greens or any of the many other suggestions offered here by Cathy Wilkinson Barash for the National Garden Bureau. Extend your vegetable gardening season and try something new. Here are some growing tips and variety selections.

Vegetable Gardening in a Small Space
You don’t need a farm to grow fresh vegetables, herbs and fruits. You don’t really even need a garden. Plant breeders know that after taste, home gardeners want a high yield in a small space. So they’ve been developing more varieties that can grow in a small foot print or even live in containers all year long.

The Year of the Chile Pepper
The National Garden Bureau has named 2006 The Year of the Chile Pepper. Hot peppers are as beautiful to look at as to eat. They grow easily in almost any garden and look as at home in the vegetable patch as in the flower border. Here’s what the NGB has to say about them.

Growing Winter Squash
Growing Winter squash can intimidate home gardeners. They grow on large vines, take all season to mature and then what do you do with them. There are also so many of them, it’s hard to know what’s worth growing. Acorn squash, Hubbards, spaghetti? Here’s a breakdown of the most popular winter squash varieties, how to grow them and how to use them.