Soil requirements
Vegetable production part 15: How to start with Swiss chard
Swiss chard can easily be confused with spinach. This is because these green, leafy vegetables only differ slightly in appearance: Swiss chard has bigger, broader leaves and thicker stems. When it comes to nutritional value, both are jampacked with minerals and vitamins, and the only real difference is that[...]
Vegetable planting guide Part 13: Potatoes
Mashed, fried, or roasted; there is nothing quite like the versatility of the potato. These starchy vegetables are a staple for many people across the globe, ranking as the world’s fourth most important food crop, and it can even be grown in a backyard vegetable patch. The plant flourishes[...]
Vegetable planting guide part 12: Peeling the layers off onion farming
Evidence suggests that onions have been part of the human diet for over 5 000 years. This means that it may have been one of the first cultivated crops. Knowing this, a quote by American cooking teacher, Julia Child, rings true: “It’s hard to imagine society without onions.” The[...]
Vegetable planting guide Part 9: Sunflowers
The sunflower, Helianthus annus L., is one of the few crop species that can be traced back to North America, despite reports that it originated in the Fertile Crescent, Asia, or in South or Central America. Most likely, it was used as a "camp flower" by several western Native[...]