Gardenig in city Brussels. Tips & Guides

Discover the Best Cruciferous Vegetables, offering a unique blend of nutrition and flavor to elevate your meals and promote a healthier lifestyle.

Today’s photos are from Connie Raines in Georgia.

Kale is one of my favorite vegetables to grow. These versatile greens can be steamed or stir fried, chopped into soups, or baked into chips. And the young leaves are delicious in salads. It’s a perfect double-duty plant, because it adds interesting foliage in various shades of green to a garden or an ornamental container, with the added bonus of being able to harvest some of the leaves. Plus it’s super-healthy. Kale is a good source of fiber and high in vitamin C. Learning how to grow kale is pretty easy. Unfortunately its nemesis, the cabbage worm, can crush—or rather eat—all your kale-growing dreams very quickly. Here are some tips on raising healthy kale plants. Varieties of kale to grow There are many different varieties of this member of the Brassica family (Brassica olerace

Have you ever wondered where plants, including fruits and vegetables, get their vibrant colors? Well, the answer is from phytonutrients! Phytonutrients (also known as phytochemicals) are compounds produced by plants that provide health benefits to our bodies and are displayed through a plant’s pigment. Phytonutrients contribute to not only a plant’s appearance, but also their taste, smell, and immune system. These compounds strengthen the plant’s immune system by protecting it from dangers such as sun damage and disease. While phytonutrients are beneficial to keeping plants healthy, when consumed by humans through a varied diet, these compounds may also aid in keeping us healthy too. Let’s explore the potential health benefits that each phytonutrient has to offer through their distinct hues.

How to Plant A Southern Fall Vegetable Garden

Dumping manure in public spaces, hurling eggs at government buildings, blocking major roads—the European farmers who have taken to the streets to challenge free trade policies sure know how to raise a ruckus. Beginning with German farmers in January earlier this year, to then include French and Belgian producers, the continent-wide protest movement has expanded into Spain and Italy as of mid-February. Their public disruption has also produced results.

How to Harvest Brussels Sprouts

I spent the morning putting the guttering round the newly covered chicken run, and also fixing some of the guttering at the back of the chicken house.

Two lots of pressies in one week, I felt totally spoilt today. The previous week had been immensely busy (no change there really), and Saturday was full of household chores and shopping. Sunday was Mother’s Day and the weather was going to be a little “meh” in the morning but brightening up in the afternoon, but I was planning on being in the garden/greenhouses for as much of it as I could. The kids bought me in a cup of tea and my presents.

It’s hard to believe that one week ago was just above zero and there was still snow on the ground, with the weather this weekend it seems a million miles away.

I am pleased to report that Victoria our new chicken and Big Bird or BB as we now call her, are now getting along very well together. There’s the odd angry look, but BB isn’t scared of her new buddy anymore. They’re still in their separate areas, even in the big brassica cage, but when I’m out in the garden, I let them play on the grass together. The grass is like no man’s land so no one feels they have the upper hand, except me that is. I think next week end they’ll live quite happily in their shed and attached run, but baby steps for them both is needed.

Well we’re now into March, although the weather seems to think it’s January.

Good afternoon all. Didn’t realise it’s been such a long time since I’ve put a blog up. If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter (X) or Instagram I’ve been putting photos up regularly. But this has just slipped my notice.

The festive season is here. Perhaps it heralds crisp snow, or just the promise of frost.

Humans have been breeding and selecting plants for millennia. And this ongoing endeavour has produced some truly extraordinary outcomes. One of the most dramatic being the progeny of Brassica oleracea. This single weedy looking coastal plant from the Mediterranean (it looks like oil seed rape) has been bred and developed so extensively that it has spawned numerous offspring including broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, romanesco and kale.

Kale is a popular garden plant that is easy to grow, vigorous, and yields a generous crop of tender leaves for the table. However flip through any seed catalog and you’ll quickly see that there are many types of kale you can grow with a range of leaf colors, textures, and shapes. While they have some similarities various types of kale also have a lot of differences. Certain ones are more cold hardy which is ideal if you want to harvest kale into winter, and others have colorful, showy foliage which is a great way to jazz up a front yard vegetable garden. Keep reading to learn more about the different varieties of kale and my 14 favourites ones to grow.

You’ve probably heard of companion planting: Grouping different plant species near each other to the mutual or sole benefit of one or the other. Companion planting methods are used for various reasons, most commonly to repel pests. Herbs, including thyme, are often recommended companion plants. So what companion plants go well with thyme? Read on to learn about companion plants for thyme.

No, cauliflower is not man-made. It’s a product of selective breeding from its wild ancestor, wild cabbage. Over many centuries, farmers chose specific plants with desirable traits to cultivate, leading to various types of Brassica oleracea, including cauliflower.

At this time of year, many outdoor growers are winding down their plots. It’s time to clear away tender plants before the first frost, gather in the last of the harvest and make sure the hardy brassicas that can survive the winter weather are protected against marauding pigeons.

Some gardeners breathe a sigh of relief when the first frosts of winter arrive – the hard work of the season is over and they can tidy the garden up and leave it dormant until spring. There’s plenty to do inside, studying the seed catalogues and planning, in the dry and the warm. If, like me, your green fingers get itchy and want to keep on gardening then your vegetable plot may already be filled with wintry crops – Brussels sprouts for Christmas, winter cabbage and kale, leeks and over-wintering onions. They’ve all been in the ground for a while now, though, and you may be casting around for something else to plant. Planted the garlic? Sown the broad beans? Then it’s time to think about Jerusalem artichokes.

Last Sunday I wanted to buy some wooden planters for the vines, so that they can clamber up the arbour, so we set off on a bit of a garden centre ‘crawl’ to find what we wanted – for them to fix to the arbour they had to be within a certain size range. And to fit within the budget they had to be within a certain price range…

When you think about Christmas plants you probably think about holly and ivy, possibly Christmas trees and poinsetties, and maybe even Brussels sprouts and parsnips. But I bet you don’t think about radishes. And yet, the humble radish (Raphanus sativus) plays an important role in the Christmas festivities in Oaxaca, Mexico.

December is another quiet month in the garden, when the bad weather is a good excuse to spend time indoors planning for next year. What worked well this year? What wasn’t as good? What do you want to add/remove/change? Winter is traditionally the time when structural changes are made in the garden, so you could be out there on nice days, building new beds or improving the paths. Try and stay off wet or frozen soil, as compaction will hurt the soil structure. Walking on boards is an option, if you need to be out there.

Trevor George, King’s College London

There’s something nice about the idea that there’s not much to do in the garden in November. That the gardener can potter around doing little bits and pieces, and justifiably spend the wet ones indoors. It’s like a holiday from the garden, after a long season of hard work.

Header image: Rob Ferl, left, and Anna-Lisa Paul looking at the plates filled part with lunar soil and part with control soils, now under LED growing lights. At the time, the scientists did not know if the seeds would even germinate in lunar soil. Credits: UF/IFAS photo by Tyler Jones

Sage is a hardy perennial grown for centuries for use medicinally and as a culinary herb. Over the course of those centuries, organic gardens have found that companion plants for sage encourage the vigor of the herb as well as the sage companion plants. What grows well with sage? There are a number of companion plants for sage. Continue reading to learn about companion planting with sage.

Good, firm, mild flavoured Brussels Sprouts are a heavy yielding crop that only need a bit of care and consideration. Here are our top tips.

I have found a new commitment to growing and eating Brussels sprouts. From 3 or 4 plants last year I ate several hearty meals including a socially distanced Christmas (not because of any sprout side effects).

A recipe with 3-ingredients that is super easy and full of fall flavors.

Summertime is upon us, and here in South Carolina, that means garden-fresh tomatoes, sweet corn, and watermelon until our bellies ache. However, if we haven’t planned a vegetable garden like THIS, where can we find all of this delicious produce? During the summer season, farmers markets can be found sprouting up throughout the state, where shoppers can buy in-season, nutritious produce while supporting local farmers. To help make the most out of your next farmers market trip, explore the following tips:

Though I cannot see without a hand magnifying lens if they have the requisite tiny markings, I’m betting from its overall appearance and velvety surface that this is the larval stage of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, because I have also seen its adult stage flying around, a smallish butterfly with a couple of smudgy spots on each white wing.This article from Missouri Botanical Garden is extremely detailed on my latest visitor, also known as the imported cabbage worm, and other pests of cabbage relatives, including cabbage looper and the caterpillar of the diamondback moth. The latter two caterpillars are smooth, not velvety, among other clues to differentiating among the three.As with all caterpillars, these can be controlle

THIS WEEK I BUILT A GREENHOUSE. Well, to be more correct, Susan (who has worked with me in the garden for many years, for which I am endlessly grateful), built a greenhouse.

Like all of Ken’s 18 books (!!!), “Making More Plants: The Science, Art and Joy of Propagation” is rich in instruction, but also visually arresting, since he’s an award-winning photographer, too.  It covers the botany of propagation—the why’s behind how you can make more plants of a particular species sexually or asexually or both—because as Ken says:“It is not essential to learn about botany to garden well; it’s inevitable.”Then in words and intimate pictures he covers virtually every tactic for doing so, from seed-sowing to leaf and root cuttings, to layering, grafting, division and more.  The photos are so beautiful, and Ken’s obvious enthusiasm so evident on every page, that I want to try everything. (Just what I nee

(They’re also really beautiful, if you look at them up close–but beautiful in the way that Japanese beetles are beautiful, meaning not enough for me to count them as beloved pets and keep them around or anything.) Squish!The cross-striped cabbage worm larvae are sort of blue-gray, and as their name suggests striped across their bodies. Not so many years back, it was more a pest in Southern farms and gardens, but has gradually made its way to southern New England, at least. I read up on them in various places–U-Mass Amherst; at the University of Georgia, and so on–and what I conc

THE PROMISE OF ROASTED BRUSSELS SPROUTS is what keeps me from turning under much of the vegetable garden, after record rains brought havoc to some crops. I’ve harvested five cherry tomatoes and as many beans so far, sigh, in a season that began with an abundance of asparagus but then fizzled.