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Thursday, 13 March 2014

How to Grow

Interested in growing vegetables and herbs but not sure how? Our How to Grow section includes detailed growing information for more than 60 edible plants. Learn how to plant and care for each vegetable and herb; how to troubleshoot common problems; how to harvest and store the produce; and how to use your harvest in the kitchen. Now get growing!

Our Most Popular Vegetables

A hand squeezes a cabbage head to determine if it’s ready to harvest.
Cabbage
Cabbage is a cool-season vegetable suited to both spring and fall. The trick to growing cabbage is steady, uninterrupted growth. That means rich soil, plenty of water, and good fertilization.
A cucumber fruit hangs from a vine attached to a small trellis
Cucumbers
Cucumber plants grow in two forms: vining and bush. Vines scramble along the ground or clamber up trellises, while bush types, such as Burpless Bush Hybrid, form a more compact plant.
Ichiban eggplant harvested with tomatoes and zinnia flowers
Eggplant
Eggplant loves warmth and grows best in very sunny, well-drained locations. Raised beds that have been generously enriched with composted manure are ideal. Eggplant needs fertile soil.
Regularly apply fertilizer to plants that produce leafy growth that you eat, such as lettuce and greens.
Lettuce
Lettuce is so easy, takes up little space, and can even be grown among flowers. It grows for many weeks in the mild weather of spring and fall. Leaf lettuce is perfect for containers.
Onions are lovely when just pulled from the garden.
Onions
If you can poke a hole into the ground, you can grow an onion from a little plant. Onion starts are little seedlings sold in bare-root bundles; each plant will start growing within days after you plant.
Grow several varieties of peppers.
Peppers
Peppers are easy to grow in any sunny, well-drained spot, and they grow well in roomy containers, too. Plant an assortment of varieties, including a range of flavors, heat levels, and fruit sizes.
Squash has male and female flowers. Female flowers become fruit when pollinated by bees with pollen from male flowers.
Squash
Start with assorted varieties and you can fearlessly grow many, many squash in a surprisingly small space. Learn how squash plants grow and how to identify certain problems in the garden.
Homegrown strawberries are sweeter and more tender than store-bought strawberries.
Strawberries
Success with strawberries asks that you understand their life cycle. Like most hardy perennials, strawberries die back in winter and start growing vigorously as the soil warms in spring.
We offer more than 50 varieties of tomatoes, both heirloom and hybrids. These are heirlooms.
Tomatoes
Sun-ripened tomatoes deliver the taste of summer in every bite. Just a few healthy plants will produce buckets of fruit. Tomatoes run on warmth. Plant in late spring and early summer.

Grow Our Most Popular Herbs

assorted basil leaves in many varieties, colors, shapes, and sizes
Basil
Basil is a warm-weather annual that grows very fast. Many gardeners mix various types of basil in their flowerbeds for a quick harvest anytime. Basil is also great for containers.
Cilantro grows best in cool weather, especially fall.
Cilantro
Cilantro needs its own space in the garden where you can harvest and then let it go to seed in summer. It grows fast in the cool weather of spring and fall, creating a rosette of lacy leaves.
Onion chives make a beautiful border for a garden or pathway
Chives
Onion chives are grown for their leaves and rosy purple flowers with a mild onion flavor. They grow well in the ground or any pot, even a small one, or the pockets of a strawberry jar.
Lavender grows in a large field in Provence.
Lavender
Lavender is a shrubby perennial grown for its flowers and fragrance, but it also serves as a landscape item for its beauty and ability to stand heat and drought. It needs very well-draining soil.
Pick mint leaves from the plant when you need them.
Mint
All mints are fast-growing, spreading plants. Give them a place to spread without getting in the way, or plant in a pot. Keep plants in check by harvesting the tips regularly and pulling up runners.
Oregano is a great plant to grow in a container.
Oregano
An herb with a robust scent and flavor, oregano loves to grow in pots or on a low wall where it can spill over an edge. Its trailing growth also makes it a good ground cover or edging.
In this landscape, parsley is used as an edging to border a garden bed.
Parsley
Use parsley plants as a companion to annuals, perennials, and herbs in beds, containers, and window boxes. Plants make a nice edging and provide a striking contrast to colorful annuals.
Plant rosemary in a terra cotta pot that drains well and dried out between watering.
Rosemary
Plants are slow growing at first but pick up speed in their second year. While rosemary tolerates partial shade, it prefers full sun and light, well-drained soil with a pH between 6 and 7.
Try thyme as a groundcover in the landscape.
Thyme
Plant thyme in your herb garden, at the edge of a walk, along a short garden wall, or in containers. Put a few along a walkway and between steps, and your footsteps will release its aroma.

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