Growing Crops: Corn Salad
Also called Lamb’s Lettuce, Mache or Rapunzel, this cold-hardy green helps make it possible to enjoy salad year-round. The flavor is quite mild.
Growing Herbs 101
There’s nothing quite like an herb garden. Not only do herbs ward off some pests who are repelled by their strong scent, they just look beautiful, and the taste of fresh herbs in your cooking cannot be beat. You will wonder how you ever cooked with that dried stuff in the bottles at the supermarket.
Growing Crops: Black Eyed Pea
Also known as the Cowpea, this legume (actually a bean) is a staple of Southeastern American cuisine. A versatile food item, they can either be picked when immature like you would pick green beans or sugar snap pea pods and eaten whole, or allowed to mature like you would grow shelling peas or beans, removing the peas from the pods and eating them fresh or drying for later use.
Growing Crops: Fava Beans
Also called Broad Beans, they actually aren’t beans at all – they’re a member of the pea family. Go figure. A bush plant rather than a climbing vine, varieties include Aquadulce, Broad Windsor Longpod, Bunyards Exhibition, Imperial Green Longpod, Futua RZ, and The Sutton.
Cover Crops
Green manure is not fresh out of the horse. In fact, it’s not even manure. It’s another name given to cover crops, or crops that are planted for one reason only: to benefit garden soil. Think of it as a grow-your-own organic fertilizer, literally. Cover crops also stabilize soil and attract beneficial bugs, providing them with food and shelter.
Growing Crops: Beans (Shell or Dried)
…as opposed to the “green beans” meant to be eaten fresh. Shell beans are the dried (or canned) beans you think of when you make bean soup or bean dip or chili or refried beans. They don’t grow much differently than their “green” cousins. The main difference is in when you harvest them.
Growing Crops: Apples
Apple trees are tricky things. They often fall victim to diseases such as apple scab, powdery mildew, and fireblight. Apple tree propagation is done by grafting particular varieties onto specific rootstocks that determine the disease resistance, growth rate and eventual size of the adult trees. We do not recommend that you plant from seed – you may put in a lot of effort for nothing. Instead, buy live trees that are at least 2 years old, the more disease-resistant the variety the better.
Composting – How to Compost 101
Compost is the absolute best fertilizer or soil amendment you can use in an organic fruit and vegetable garden. It helps create loam from sandy/silty or clay soils, prevents soil from becoming too acidic or basic, and is an excellent source of the proper balance of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.
