Vegetable growing

Knowing when your onions are ready for harvest and how to prepare them for storage are important steps toward having a successful crop.

If you’ve never tasted horseradish, Armoracia rusticana, then think wasabi, Wasabia japonica. These two foods have a nearly identical flavor, often described as peppery, spicy and pungent, however, the sharp taste of horseradish only lasts a short time and doesn’t sear your mouth like hot peppers do.

What’s the best way to harvest your greens, such as lettuce, spinach, and Swiss chard?  Before starting, remember these harvest tips.

The history of popcorn in the Americas is very old, with the oldest samples of popcorn found in the Bat Cave of west central New Mexico dated at about 4,000 years old. According to the Popcorn Board, an organization of United States popcorn processors, it’s thought that the first use of wild and early-cultivated corn in the Americas was for popping. Popcorn was important to Aztec Indian ceremonies and an important food for them, too. Nearly all the world’s popcorn is grown in the United States, with one fourth of the U.S. national production in Nebraska.

Yam or Sweet Potato? 

The growing season is in full swing and gardening questions abound! Including questions about pollination and its effects in the vegetable garden, so here is a quick look at pollination and how it will - or won’t - affect the plants in your garden.

Can pumpkins be planted near cucumbers, or will they cross-pollinate and cause problems with this summer’s fruits? Each summer, Extension offices receive calls from clientele wondering if their plants have crossed with something else to create a weird hybrid. In this particular instance, the answers are “yes” and “no.

Pest control - insects, diseases and weeds - are challenging for the home organic vegetable gardener. Today we’ll focus on techniques for insect and disease control. Organic gardens may have a higher level of insect and disease damage. Decide how much damage can be tolerated as a threshold for determining when control is needed.

Pest Prevention
Start the gardening season by using these six basic principles to minimize disease problems.

Finally, it’s tomato harvest season! You’ve tended your plants through cool, cloudy spring conditions into summer’s heat and they’ve done great. Now you finally have tomatoes ripening and ready for harvest. But wait – they have cracks, yellow shoulders and white spots; what is wrong now?

Potatoes are one of our favorite vegetables. The Northern Plains Potato Growers Association says each person in the United States eats 110 pounds of potatoes each year!

Fortunately potatoes are not very difficult to grow in the home garden. And once you have your crop in the ground, it’s important to know when and how to harvest. Harvesting correctly ensures the best production from your planting, as well as good winter storage.

Both white and red-skinned potatoes can be grown as an early crop for new potatoes and as a late crop for storage.

What vegetable crop can you grow all year round and harvest in as little as three days? Give up? It’s sprouts.

Seeds for Sprouts
Though people usually think of bean sprouts – grown from soy and mung beans – you can also use a number of other seeds to grow sprouts, including alfalfa, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, lentils, pea, radish and buckwheat.

Winter greenhouse production is nothing new, but rising concerns about heating with fossil fuels and their impact on climate change, have some growers looking for new ways to grow winter crops with less damage to the environment.

Let’s take a look at three techniques, both new and old, that can be used to make winter vegetable production a reality for large-scale growers and small home gardeners.

Onions are a cooking staple and not difficult to grow in the home garden. So why not grow your own this summer? But which to choose? There are many options in the garden catalogs.

Day Length Requirements
The first option to consider is whether to choose short day, day neutral or long day onions. Onion cultivars are grouped according to the number of daylight hours or day length required to trigger the beginning of bulb development.