Mizuna is an Asian leafy green well suited for salads or salad mixes such as mesclun. Mizuna can also be used in stir-fries and soups and added to other dishes at the end of cooking. Mizuna is similar to mustard greens though milder flavored—a bit peppery, tangy, and with a light cabbage flavor. Mizuna is…
How to Grow
Growing Backyard Grapes
Growing backyard grapes is not difficult, but success depends upon choosing the right variety for your climate, training the vine, and pruning regularly. Grapes require a cold spell during the winter (but not a killing freeze), warmth in spring for flowering and fruit set, and heat and sunshine in summer to ripen the fruit. There…
Strawberry Plant Starting Tips
Strawberry plants are perennials. A strawberry plant will bear fruit for 2 to 3 years. A single plant will send you several runners towards the end of each season; these runners easily establish themselves as new, independent plants. There are many varieties of strawberry. Some can be started from seed but most are started from…
Pepper Growing Success Tips
1. Peppers prefer deep, aged-compost–rich soil. If your soil is heavy with clay, grow peppers in a raised bed, adding loam and sand. 2. Growing peppers in your native soil: add at least 2 inches of aged compost across the planting bed and sprinkle with 5-10-10 organic fertilizer, then turn the soil to at least…
How to Grow Parsley
Parsley is a favorite of most Western cooks—used for its clean, fresh taste in sauces, salads, stuffings, and omelettes. It’s commonly added at the end of cooking for its fresh peppery and tangy flavor. It has a light spicy aroma with hints of anise and lemon. There are two types of parsley: flat-leaf parsley, also…
How to Grow Bitter Melon
Bitter melon is a favorite in Asian and Southeast Asian cooking. It can be stuffed with pork or shrimp and steamed or pickled or curried and served with meat or in soup. Bitter melons are—as their name suggests–a bitter and mouth-puckering acquired taste—something like the acquired taste of a grapefruit or very dark chocolate. The…
How to Grow Tomatillos
The tomatillo is not a tomato but related to the tomato. Its fruit is used to make sauces and salads and is very popular in Mexican and Southwestern cuisine. The tomatillo has a sweet sharp flavor recognizable in the green sauce used on chicken enchiladas and fresh green salsa for tortilla chips and tacos. The…
Soybean Growing Tips
The vegetable soybean (not the field soybean) can be used like green peas or lima beans or can be dried and used like navy beans or can be sprouted like Mung beans. Soybeans are the lowest-starch, highest-protein bean. The soybean is a sprawling bush legume much like a bush snap bean or lima bean. Plants…
Peppers, Melons, Eggplants—Hate the Cold
Cool days and nights can be a problem for tender warm-season crops such peppers, melons, and eggplants. Temperatures in the 40sF won’t kill these plants but their growth will be stunted. Wait to plant out very tender crops until the lowest temperatures do not fall below 50°F/10°C—55 or 60 degrees is even better. If you…
When to Plant a Fall Vegetable Garden
Planting a fall vegetable garden is a matter of timing. Most fall vegetable garden crops are cool-weather vegetables; they include many of the same crops you plant in the spring vegetable garden. The time to plant vegetables for fall and winter harvest is mostly determined by temperature, specifically when you expect the first frost or…