How to Store Kohlrabi Plants The leaves of young kohlrabi can be eaten much like spinach or mustard greens and should be eaten as soon as possible. If you aren’t going to eat them the day they were harvested, trim the leaves from the stem and then place them in a Ziploc baggie with a damp paper towel in the crisper of your refrigerator. Storing kohlrabi leaves in this manner will keep them fresh and edible for about a week....

Summer Crisp Lettuce Info If you’ve ever eaten lettuce grown in too-hot weather, it’s likely you found it bitter tasting and even tough. That’s a good reason to put in Summer Crisp lettuce plants. These plants grow happily in summer heat. But they remain sweet, without any trace of bitterness. Summer Crisp lettuce varieties are a great meld of open lettuce and compact heads. They grow in loose, making it easy for you to harvest the outer leaves if you like, but they mature into compact heads....

Tendergold Melon Information Tendergold watermelon plants, also known as “Willhites Tendergold,” produce medium-sized melons with sweet, golden yellow flesh that deepens in both color and flavor as the melon ripens. The firm, deep green rind is mottled with pale green stripes. How to Grow Tendergold Watermelons Growing Tendergold watermelon plants is much like growing any other watermelon. Here are some tips on Tendergold melon care: Plant Tendergold watermelons in spring, at least two to three weeks after your last average frost date....

Phosphorus Deficiency in the Soil How can you tell if your garden has a phosphorus deficiency? The easiest way to tell is to look at the plants. If your plants are small, are producing little or no flowers, have weak root systems or a bright green or purplish cast, you have a phosphorus deficiency. Since most plants in the garden are grown for their flowers or fruit, replacing phosphorus in the soil if it is lacking is very important....

What is Stinkweed? There are two types of stinkweed, and both are annuals. One begins growing in spring and can be a problem throughout summer. The other grows in fall and winter. Management for both weeds is the same. Stinkweed plants begin as a low rosette of leaves. Stems grow from the center of the rosette and eventually support branches topped with clusters of small, white flowers. Flat, winged seed pods form after the flowers fade....

Alternaria Tomato Information Nailhead spot of tomatoes is a fungal disease caused by the fungus Alternaria tomato, or Alternaria tennis sigma. Its symptoms are very similar to those of early blight, however, the spots are smaller, approximately the size of a nail head. On the foliage, these spots are brown to black and slightly sunken in the center, with yellow margins. On the fruit, the spots are gray with sunken centers and darker margins....

Turnera Buttercup Bushes Native to the Caribbean, the Cuban buttercup is the official flower of Cienfuegos, Cuba. The buttercup bush is one of the plants to first appear on sandy beaches after they’ve been ravaged by hurricanes. It is a perennial and reseeds readily. The rewards of growing buttercup bushes are not only the abundant flowers, but the attractive, oval shaped, serrated evergreen foliage, which is fragrant. The Cuban buttercup attracts butterflies as well and is at home spreading between taller plants in the butterfly garden....

Types of Common Garden Herbs These are the types of herbs I grow when I plant my own herb garden. Basil– Basil is quite popular as far as edible herbs go and is great in tomato sauces and other tomato dishes. It requires a lot of sun and demands that you pinch off the ripe leaves so it will continue to get bigger. Bay Leaf– Another one of the more common garden herbs is the bay leaf....

Growing Orange Mint Herbs Orange mint herbs, like all mint varieties, are vigorous growers and can overwhelm a garden if they’re allowed to. To keep your orange mint in check, it’s best either to grow it in pots or in containers sunk in the ground. Sunken containers will give the appearance of a regular garden bed while preventing the roots from spreading out beyond their limits. That being said, if you have a space that you’d like to fill out quickly, orange mint is a good choice....

Types of Chrysanthemums Single – Single chrysanthemums, one of the most common varieties of mums, are distinguished by a flat center and up to five radiating rows of long, daisy-like petals. The leaves, which are lobed or toothed, have a distinct aroma when crushed. Examples include Amber Morning, Daisy, and Tenderness. Pompom – Of all the different types of mums, pompom mums are among the smallest and the cutest. Pompom mums produce several colorful little globe-like blooms per stem....

Trapa comes from calcitrappa, the Latin name of the caltrop, referring to the strange fruits. The caltrop was a medieval device with four prongs that was thrown on the ground to disable the enemy’s calvary horses during European warfare. The term is more relevant to the T. natans water caltrop nuts that have four horns, which incidentally, were introduced into the U.S. in the late 1800s as an ornamental and is now listed as invasive to the waterways in northeastern U....

What are Oil Bees? Oil collecting bees have a symbiotic relationship with floral oil producing plants. First discovered over 40 years ago by Stefan Vogel, this mutualism has evolved through various adaptations. Over the course of history, floral oil production and oil collecting on the part of certain species of bees has waxed and waned. There are 447 species of apid bees that collect oil from about 2,000 species of angiosperms, wetland plants that reproduce both sexually and asexually....

The botanical name by which you can truly identify this plant is Kalanchoe tomentosa ‘Chocolate Soldier.’ The plant grows in a loose rosette with mostly oval shaped leaves. These are an attractive pale to medium green, edged in brown stitching, hence the name of chocolate soldier. The paleness varies with lighting, as do the color of the stitches (borders) on the leaves. How to Grow Chocolate Soldier Succulents Growing a chocolate soldier is simple once you’ve learned the conditions it prefers and how to water the specimen....

How to Grow a Lemon Cucumber So you want to know more about lemon cucumber planting. Well to start with, growing lemon cucumbers isn’t difficult. However, lemon cucumber plants require full sunlight and rich well-drained soil – much like any other cucumber variety. A scoop of compost or well-rotted manure gets lemon cucumber plantings off to a good start. Plant lemon cucumber seeds in rows or hills after the soil has warmed to 55 F....

Nuttall Oak Information These trees are in the red oak family. They grow to 60 feet (18 m.) tall and 45 feet (14 m.) wide. As native trees, they require minimal nuttall oak tree care. Vigorous and strong, nuttall oaks grow in a pyramidal form. They later mature into a round-canopied tree. The tree’s upper branches tip upward, while lower limbs grow straight out horizontally without drooping. Like most oak trees, a nuttall oak has lobed leaves, but they are smaller than the leaves of many oaks....

What is a Sikkim Cucumber? Sikkim heirloom cucumbers are native to the Himalayas and named for Sikkim, a state in northwest India. The vines are long and vigorous, the leaves and flowers much bigger than those of the cucumbers you might be used to growing. The fruits are especially interesting. They can get huge, often weighing in at 2 or even 3 pounds (1 kg.). On the outside they look like a cross between a giraffe and a cantaloupe, with a tough skin of dark rust red striated with cream colored cracks....

What is an Eyelash Sage? The genus Salvia is comprised of more than 700 species amongst which are eyelash sage plants. They belong to the Lamiaceae or mint family and are notoriously pest resistant and highly attractive to hummingbirds. A Mexican native, eyelash leaved sage (Salvia blepharophylla) is also aptly named ‘Diablo,’ which means devil in Spanish and is in reference to the bright yellow stamens that stand up out of the crimson flowers like horns....

What is Bog Rosemary? Bog rosemary plants, also known as marsh Andromeda because of the species name, are creeping evergreens. Low to the ground, no taller than a couple of feet (61 cm.), they thrive in soggy areas in the landscape. This native is found growing wild in the northeast United States. It also is native to parts of Europe and Asia. The new growth of these marsh Andromeda shrubs is usually lime green, although sometimes you find reddish hues....

Emerald Oak Lettuce Info What is Emerald Oak lettuce? This cultivar is a cross between two other lettuce varieties: Blushed Butter Oak and Deer Tongue. It was originally developed in 2003 by Frank and Karen Morton, owners of Wild Garden Seed, who over the years have bred countless new kinds of greens. It is apparently a favorite on the Morton farm. The lettuce grows in dense, compact heads of rounded leaves that are a shade of bright green you could easily describe as “emerald....

What is Lettuce Tipburn? Tipburn of lettuce is actually a physiological disorder similar to blossom end rot in tomato. The symptoms of lettuce with tipburn are exactly as they sound, usually the ends or edges of the leaves browning. The brown area may be confined to a few small dots at or near the leaf margin or may affect the entire edge of a leaf. Brown veins may occur near the brown lesions....