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Plant of the Month – Tomatoes

It’s that time of year: tomato time. Tomatoes are the number one vegetable grown by home gardeners in the western world. Gardeners are seeking that well-known and loved taste; the [...]

Plant of the Month: Sunflowers

SUNFLOWERS Advice from a sunflower. Be bright, sunny and positive. Know your roots. Spread seeds of happiness. Rise, shine and hold your head up high. Keep on growing. Even on [...]

Plant of the Month: Radish

RADISHES Radishes grow just about anywhere. People think, ‘Oh it’s just a radish.’ But radishes are delicious, and people don’t think of cooking them. Emeril Lagasse (American Celebrity Chef) HISTORICAL [...]

Plant of the Month: Purslane

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), commonly called pigweed, is an annual ‘weed’ in season during summer and into autumn. It is a succulent plant, containing 93% water, with red stems and small, [...]

Plant of the Month: Peas

Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old. old nursery rhyme HISTORICAL INFORMATION Pease porridge, the ancestor of what is now known as pea [...]

Plant of the Month: Marigolds

Inchworm, Inchworm, measuring the marigolds, seems to me you’d stop and see how beautiful they are! So sang Danny Kaye in the 1952 movie, Hans Christian Anderson. Marigolds are not only beautiful [...]

Plant of the Month: Cucumber

CUCUMBERS The phrase, “cool as a cucumber” was first used in 1732 in a poem by John Gay, entitled New Song on New Similes. Cucumbers are cool; in fact, the inside of a [...]

Plant of the Month: Coriander

Coriander, also known as Cilantro, is a herb that divides people – you either love it, or you dislike it, it seems there is no ‘take it or leave it’!! [...]

Plant of the Month – Comfrey

Comfrey: weed or useful plant? Comfrey is called a weed in many places. However, it is some times referred to, by ‘permie’ ‘practitioners, as “the permaculture plant”.  It can be used [...]

Plant of the Month: Collards

Collards are a loose leaf vegetable from the Brassica family, which includes cabbages, kale, broccoli and mustards. They are sometimes referred to as “collard greens”, “tree collards” or ‘borekale’.1 Botanically speaking, [...]

Plant of the Month: Chicory

Chicory is a perennial grown as a leaf and root vegetable, or as a coffee substitute. The plants originated in the area around the Mediterranean sea: western Asia, southern Europe [...]

Plant of the Month: Celery

HISTORICAL INFORMATION Celery originated in the Mediterranean region. Archaeological evidence of celery being grown in Switzerland 6,000 years ago shows that celery seeds were bring transported throughout Europe and, probably, [...]

Plant of the Month: Cape Gooseberry

What is that strange looking fruit? It looks like a little paper lantern! This is ‘Cape Gooseberry’, also know as ‘Peruvian Ground Cherry’, ‘Golden Berry’ or ‘Aztec Berry’. Sometimes, in [...]

Plant of the Month: Calendula

I thought we’d do something different this month: a flower instead of a vegetable. Before you turn away, asking “What value is that?”, read through the rest of the article [...]

Plant of the Month: Cabbage

HISTORICAL INFORMATION The cabbages we know today were bred from wild mustard plants that grew around the Mediterranean region. The parent plants of modern cabbages were grown at least 1,000BCE [...]

Plant of the Month: Broccoli

HISTORICAL INFORMATION The broccoli we know today was bred from wild mustard plants that grew around the Mediterranean region. The parent plants of modern broccoli were grown in Roman times, [...]

Plant of the Month: Beets

The beloved addition to Australia hamburgers is not just a root vegetable. The species that we call ‘beets’ includes plants grown for their roots, such as beetroot, sugar-beet and mangel [...]

Plant of the Month: Basil

BASIL “Pounding fragrant things – particularly garlic, basil, parsley – is a tremendous antidote to depression.” Patience Gray, English food writer (1917-2005) HISTORICAL INFORMATION Despite the fact that many people [...]

Plant of the Month: Lettuce

HISTORICAL INFORMATION The plant we now call lettuce was once thought to have been bred from a ‘weed’ growing in the countries close to the Mediterranean Sea. Wild varieties (Lactuca […]