Planet Veggie Garden

What happens to plants when they are deficient in minerals? Oftentimes, as in humans, they exhibit the symptoms commonly associated with disease. They do not do well…stunted growth, yellowing leaves, curling leaves, blossom end rot…just to name a few. Amending the soil and rotating crops can help prevent deficiencies but what happens when your plants [...]

well, Winter is long past and we are nearly a month in to Spring. It was hard to get out into the garden (whine, whine) in the cold damp winter so we just let nature do it’s thing.
In the Fall, we had planted: garlic, carrots, beets, daikon, watermelon radishes, kale, chard, mustard, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces, [...]

Many of us think sweet potatoes and yams are one and the same. While there is some rationale for the confusion they are indeed two different species.
Yams – like potatoes – are a tuber.
Sweet potatoes are roots and part of the Morning Glory family that grow on trailing vines and root at the nodes.
Yams have [...]

  Potato plants

We’ve had rain 5 days going – a very good thing in this state (California) after a few drought years.
The garden is benefiting and especially the potatoes. I didn’t plant many but some green has bursted through.
This is the International year of the potato, so anointed by the United Nations.
The humble potato is a [...]

I realized many years ago that I love to cook because I love to eat. I just realized that one of the reasons I love to garden is that I love to eat.
If you love broccoli – there is nothing better than home grown. It is so sweet and tender all it needs is a [...]

I’ve always loved broccoli. In fact, as a kid when my Mom prepared broccoli for dinner, we kids would fight over it. I guess it had an impact on me as to this day I always make enough broccoli (for the two of us) to feed…12
But hey, Broccoli is oh so good for you!

Loads of [...]

  Box of leaf lettuce

Don’t have much space but love really fresh salad…here’s one of our boxes of lettuce.
Very simple. We got a banana box from a local grocer (actually, we’ve gotten many banana boxes). Typically it comes with a plastic liner bag with aeration holes. We double the box by putting the bottom half into [...]

Beets are a wonderful nutrient packed vegetable where you can not only enjoy the root but leaves as well. So many great reasons to add this to your garden!
Since we got a late start to our fall and winter garden we took a chance by direct sowing some seeds a few weeks ago. We have [...]

When it comes to roots, you can’t beat beets for it’s sweet taste and nutritional punch.
If you are only familiar with the canned beets typically found in salad bars you are in for a real treat if you grow and cook your own!
Beets are believed to have it’s roots in Africa, migrating to Asia and [...]

Time to celebrate. We’re back on the road to productivity…It’s safe to go back into the garden!

A Piece of the Rainbow

After the rats ate all our chard, we began to go into withdrawal. We love chard!
Though it was the end of summer we went ahead and started some seeds in an undisclosed location to transplant [...]