Mesclun: The French Salad Mix

Vegetables and herbs generally prefer sun, but some crops can tolerate shade and are good choices for balcony or patio container gardens that fall in shade most of the day. Leafy crops are commonly the best choice for shade gardens; they crops have large surfaces for photosynthesis. Fruiting crops such as tomatoes and peppers demand

You can learn how to grow sage in minutes. Sage is an herbaceous perennial herb that is easy to grow in most sunny gardens. In the kitchen, sage has an aggressive pungent aroma and flavor which is often described as camphor-like and musty. Sage is commonly used in dishes containing pork, cheese, and beans, and

The shallot is a small onion of the multiplier type. Its bulbs have a more delicate flavor than most onions. Shallots add a distinctive, complex flavor to savory dishes. Shallots can be grown from seed or sets (small shallots). Plant sets 2 to 4 weeks before the last frost. Sow seeds indoors 4 to 6

Cucumbers are sweet except when they are a tad bitter. Choose cucumbers for their sweetness and refreshing cleanness or for their green grassy astringency and crispness. Sometimes you don’t know which cucumber you will get until you bring it in from the garden and taste it. Always cucumbers are cooling and refreshing—they are, after all

Bush beans flowering December brings the arrival of summer to the Southern Hemisphere vegetable garden. Warm-season crops can still be planted this month. Spring-planted crops will come to harvest this month.  If you are preparing for your summer Christmas holiday, make sure that the vegetable garden is well mulched before you go. Mulch will keep

Autumn and winter crops replace summer crops as days shorten and temperatures begin to drop. Root crops do best in cool weather as do most leafy crops. As warm-weather fruiting vegetables—tomatoes, peppers, and squashes—finish their run for the year remove them and prepare planting beds for autumn and winter crops–beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, kale, spinach