Newsletter8

“DID YOU KNOW...” Part 1 - Vegetables

Seed sown asparagus should not be harvested until the 4th
or 5th year.

Homegrown freshly picked tomatoes have up to 5 times as
much vitamin C as store bought.

Starchy root crops (ie: potatoes) are considered the best
source of energy because their starch is in a complex form
and digests slowly.

A beet seed is actually a fruit containing clusters of seeds.

Cabbage prefers cool, moist growing conditions.

Okra was brought to Louisiana by French colonists in the
early eighteenth century.

Planting leafy crops like buttercup lettuce or squash at the
base of tall vegetables or flowers provides a “living mulch”.

If you mix radish seeds with your slow sprouting carrot seeds,
you won’t lose where you planted carrots and when you pick
your radishes it will help loosen the soil for your carrots
to grow better.

You should let at least two years go by before planting spinach
in the same spot because it takes so many nutrients out of the
soil to grow?

If you pick summer squash, including zucchini, when the
vegetables are young, the plant will continue to produce
until fall, and also they are very heavy feeders.

Peas start converting their sugar to starch as soon as they
are picked.

And finally, some info on plant names. Plants are listed by
their family, genus, then species, then variety or cultivar,
and hybrid. Here’s what those words mean:

FAMILY refers to a group of plants with similar characteristics.
GENUS is a subgroup of more closely related plants within a
plant family.
SPECIES is a subgroup of the genus and group plants with even
more similar characteristics.
A VARIETY is a variation of a species found in the wild.
A CULTIVAR is a variation of a species that has been selected
and developed by plant specialists.
HYBRID is a cross between two species. When two hybrids are
crossed, it is called an F1 Hybrid.

Well, that just about does it for this newsletter. I’m
considering putting out a newsletter dedicated to vegetable-
based recipes, so if you have some, or even one, send them to
me and if I get enough and the response is positive, I will
put them in a future newsletter. Please e-mail your gardening
tips, advise and questions to me at gardeni-@yahoo.com.
And if you have a gardening website, you are welcome to join
my webring! It’s called the Gardener’s Exchange, and if you
would like to add your site to the ring, just visit my website
and where you see the purple Gardener’s Exchange Webring bar,
click on “Join” and follow the directions. Just make sure to
submit the site that your webring navigation bar will actually
be on. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from all of you
soon. Happy Growing!

DBS