If you’ve ever wondered how to grow peanuts or why the average home gardener would even want to, you’re in the right place—and you’re in for a treat. Peanuts are easy to grow, tasty, and protein-packed. What’s more, they’re not only good for you, but they’re also good for your soil. Much more than a garden novelty, peanuts are practical and prolific. They can be eaten fresh out of the pod, pounded into peanut butter, or otherwise preserved for the long haul. Best of all, individual plants can yield as many as 40 to 50 pods each. In this article you’ll learn all about how to grow peanuts.
Growing corn in containers from seed to harvest
Growing corn in containers allows you to enjoy the sweet flavor of homegrown corn in a smaller space. While you do need the right pot, soil, seeds, and technique to grow corn in pots, it’s not difficult to do. In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know, including how to hand-pollinate your corn plants to get fully developed ears from just a few plants.
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Repotting aloe vera: Tips for choosing potting soil, pots, and more
Repotting aloe vera becomes necessary for a few reasons, especially when your plant starts to outgrow its pot. It can also be done when you have a baby aloe plant growing alongside the original. Referred to as a pup, this wee little aloe can be separated and repotted in its own container. Aloe plants require repotting anywhere from every three to five years or so. I often will save two or three houseplants to repot at the same time while I have my soil out and the table covered. In this article, I’ll explain how to repot an aloe plant—and a pup if you have one.
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Purple perennial flowers: 24 brilliant choices for big and small gardens
Purple is a powerful color, and purple perennial flowers are a wonderful way to introduce more of this color to the garden. While I don’t know much about using purple for interior design, art, or fashion, I do know how to use it in a garden. The power and bravado of purple in the landscape is undeniable, especially when it comes to perennials. Today, I’d like to share 24 of my favorite purple perennial flowers. Whether their shade of purple is dark and regal or light and luscious, these beauties add depth, richness, and a pop of color to your garden.
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Growing parsnips: A seed to harvest guide
Growing parsnips in a home garden takes some planning, but the reward is nutritious root vegetables ready for harvest when the rest of the garden is slowing down in the fall and winter or before it has gotten started again in the spring. In fact, after parsnips greens are kissed with a frost or two in the fall the roots are even tastier. If you’re not able to harvest them right away, these hardy root vegetables can overwinter in the garden. Parsnips (Pastinaca sativa) are a bit more finicky to grow than other vegetables in the carrot family, but they’re absolutely worth planting in a home garden. This article will give you the details you need to create the perfect conditions for growing parsnips as well as a caution about parsnip-plant lookalikes.
How to grow kale: Tips for planting, preventing pests, and harvesting
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.
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