Leaf vegetables - Fine Gardening
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Article
How to Grow Brassicas
The genus Brassica is impressively large and diverse, selectively bred by many cultures to produce delicious roots, leaves, stems, and flower buds. One particularly widespread species, Brassica oleracea, was cultivated…
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Kitchen Gardening
Have You Heard of Mini Head Lettuces?
There’s a lot to love about mini head lettuces, which are tender young greens harvested when they are about 6 inches tall and wide. Gardeners and farmers appreciate that this…
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Article
What the Chef Grows
Most people wouldn’t argue that I know my way around a kitchen. What many don’t know, though, is that I know my way around a garden, too. I learned how…
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Article
Beautiful, Bountiful Kale
Kale’s popularity has taken off over the past decade, partly because it has been recognized by science as a “super food” but also because it is wonderfully delicious. It is…
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Article
Grow Your Own Microgreens
Since I have been growing microgreens commercially, I have seen their popularity take off. Countless fine restaurants have added them to their menus, and customers have started seeking them out…
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How-To
Buried Treasure: Lesser-Known Root Vegetables
It’s easy to appreciate the fruits of our labor when they’re displayed so enticingly aboveground: chains of sun-warmed cherry tomatoes; clusters of tender snap beans in gold, green, or purple;…
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Kitchen Gardening
Why Do Greens Bolt?
No matter what you do, when you grow lettuces and other greens in your garden, they will eventually start growing taller and blooming. Most people assume that it’s just high…
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How-To
What Makes Cut Flowers Last Longer?
One of the great joys of gardening is taking beautiful blooms from favorite plants and placing them indoors to brighten a room. Cut flowers, however, can quickly lose their beauty.…
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Kitchen Gardening
Beyond the Basic Greens
Fresh-picked salad greens are among the most rewarding vegetables that a gardener can grow. What else yields tasty baby leaves in just 30 days from a few seeds sown in…
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Design
4 Easy, Pretty, and Edible Planting Designs
I consider myself pretty lucky to have thousands of heirloom vegetable, flower, and herb varieties in my backyard—which happens to be Seed Savers Exchange's Heritage Farm in Decorah, Iowa. Although…