Herbs are easy to grow and a boon to the gardener who’d just as soon have someone or something else do pest control. Interplant crops with onions, garlic, and marigolds. Try sage, mint, catnip, or dill among your cabbages. Sage, for instance, gives off camphor, which repels the cabbage butterfly. Herbs may discourage insect infestation not only by their specific effects, but by breaking up a large planting of one crop, which is an open invitation to pests. Read the rest of this entry »

Your kitchen garden can be as simple as a few herbs in pots outside your back door, or a proper vegetable and herb garden.

The type of garden you choose will depend upon the space you have available, the amount of sun it gets, the time you have to spend in the garden, and to a certain extent, your own taste in food. A small-scale kitchen garden could perhaps consist of a few herbs and some tomatoes, lettuce and carrots. Read the rest of this entry »

I plant them early, at least 3 or 4 weeks before the last spring frost date, and also later in the season so they can mature in the cool weather of fall.

A couple of years ago, Jan and I picked our first heads of broccoli a few days before Memorial Day, and cut the last ones from our fall planting on Thanksgiving Day. If you live south of my homestead, you can easily get a longer season of cabbage family crops—especially in the fall. Read the rest of this entry »

“When I realized I could grow broccoli without ever worrying about worms again, I wanted to get up and dance!

No More Worms!

For a long time I didn’t eat much broccoli. I planted a lot of it but each spring when my broccoli was starting to head, a flockof small white butterflies appeared over the rows of broccoli and the other cabbage family crops. Read the rest of this entry »

I blanch it with its own leaves

A thriving row of cauliflower is a spectacular sight in the vegetable garden, but few people think they can have great success with it. I think it’s as easy to grow as any cabbage family crop. Cauliflower is less tolerant to hot weather than its relatives, though, so it’s important to set your plants out very early or plan on a fall crop. If the heads mature in the heat, they’re apt to have a bitter taste or go by very quickly.

For your first crop, set out some plants 3 or 4 weeks before the average date of the last spring frost. Pinch off a couple of the lower leaves.

As cauliflower heads get to be 4 to 5 inches across, they should be blanched by preventing sunlight from reaching the heads. Read the rest of this entry »