Growing Guides

Mache (Valerianella locusta), also called corn salad or lamb's lettuce, is a tiny, remarkably cold-hardy salad green that grows in low rosettes of tender, spoon-shaped leaves. Its mild, nutty, buttery flavor has none of the bitterness of chicories, and it...

Mint (Mentha) is about the easiest herb a beginner can start, and learning how to grow mint from seed sets you up with a fragrant, hardy perennial for tea, cooking, and the bee garden. It sprouts fast, comes back bigger...

Echinacea (Echinacea purpurea), better known as purple coneflower, is one of the most dependable perennials you can grow from seed, and once it settles in it comes back on its own for years. Expect big, rosy-purple daisies that bees and...

Anise (Pimpinella anisum) is the true source of that warm, sweet licorice flavor bakers love, and it is easier to grow from seed than most people expect. This lacy little annual gives you fragrant seed for biscotti, breads, and after-dinner...

Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) is a beginner-friendly herb that hands you cheerful little daisy-like flowers all summer for a soothing homemade tea. It is easygoing, drought-tolerant, happy in a bed or a pot, and it reseeds itself year after year. The...

Borage (Borago officinalis) is one of the most rewarding herbs you can grow from seed: sow it once and its brilliant blue, star-shaped flowers keep coming all summer, then it drops seed and comes back on its own the next...

If you have only ever met dandelion as a lawn weed, the garden version is a happy surprise. This guide is about growing the Italian dandelion, or dandelion chicory (Cichorium intybus), a cool-season leafy green with the same deeply toothed,...

Tokyo Long White is a fast, reliable bunching onion, or scallion, that grows long, slender white stalks with no bulb and a fresh, mild onion flavor. It is a cut-and-come-again crop that keeps producing, and it is one of the...

Yellow Sweet Spanish (Utah strain) is a large, dependable yellow onion that forms big golden globes with firm, mildly sweet flesh and good keeping quality. It is a long-day variety, so it is a Northern-garden classic and one of the...