A close-up pile of long vegetables with red-pink skins

Growing Guide: Shallots

This smaller cousin of the common onion belongs to the Allium cepa species, subspecies aggregatum. Shallots lend sweetness to dishes that ask for onions and they are just as easy to grow as their large-bulbing relatives.

Two pink beans in a split open green pod, on top of a pile of black and red speckled beans

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Runner Beans

These plants are often grown as ornamentals, owing to their large and often bright red flowers, as well as for their edible seeds.

Four radish white halves with a pink center on top of a pile of white whole radishes with green stems

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Radish

Radishes are quick and easy to grow, and are a tasty addition to salads and roasted vegetable plates. Some radish varieties mature in one season, while others are over-wintered and produce seed in the second season.

A pile of wide red peppers with short green stems on top of green leaves

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Peppers

Both sweet and hot peppers originate from one wild species native to Central and South America. Of today’s five domesticated pepper species, gardeners usually encounter two: Capsicum annuum and Capsicum chinense.

A green pea pod attached to a green stem, in front of green stems and leaves

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Peas

It is easy to see why this early-season crop is a popular garden plant. Peas require little care beyond a trellis and pest protection, yet they produce prolific amounts of snappy pods throughout the spring and summer.

Three cut-open white and brown onions and one cut-open red onion on a wood surface

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Onions

Onions, like other members of the Allium family, are biennials, producing seeds in their second year of growth. The bulb (or common) onion has brown, yellow, or red skin and is round, elongated, or flattened.

A white bowl with green, star-shaped vegetable slices with white seeds in their centers, in front of green ridged vegetables, on top of a rock surface

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Okra

The towering stalks of the okra plant provide height, texture, and color to the home garden. Both beautiful and productive, okra can be harvested for several weeks throughout the summer.

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Mustard Greens

Mustard greens are a cool-season crop that are easy to grow. They tolerate a light frost and can be grown all winter in warmer climates. Exposure to frost makes the leaves sweeter, and warm weather makes the leaves spicier.

Two round white melon halves with seeds in the center and yellow rinds, surrounded by 5 small whole yellow melons

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Melons

Like its cucurbit cousins—watermelon, cucumbers, and squash—melons and Armenian cucumbers produce numerous fruitful vines. There are countless varieties of melons—hundreds if not thousands, not counting many that go unrecorded worldwide.

A pile of multicolored flat beans next to a pile of green bean pods and a pile of red and white speckled bean pods

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Lima Beans

While different than the common bean, lima beans have a similar growing habit. Some lima beans are vining crops that need to be trellised while other varieties have a bush habit that allows them to be planted without support.

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