Growing Guides

Few flowers reward a little seed and a lot of sunshine like cosmos does. These airy, daisy-like blooms rise on tall, feathery stems and float above the garden in shades of pink, white, magenta, and gold, drawing in bees and...

Green Globe is the classic globe artichoke, prized for its large, rounded, thornless green buds on a dramatic three-to-four-foot silvery plant. It is the standard variety for eating the tender heart and the meaty bases of the leaves. Like all...

Tomatillos and their sweet cousin the cape gooseberry are the husk fruits every salsa lover should grow. Wrapped in a papery lantern husk, tart green tomatillos are the base of salsa verde, while golden cape gooseberries are a sweet-tart treat...

Italian Large Leaf basil is the classic sweet, Genovese-style basil prized for its big, fragrant, tender green leaves. It is the go-to basil for pesto, Caprese, and fresh tomato dishes, filling the kitchen with sweet aroma all summer. Plants reach...

Marketmore 76 is the classic, dependable slicing cucumber that gardeners have trusted for generations. It produces long, straight, dark-green fruit about 8 to 9 inches long on vigorous vines, with strong resistance to scab and cucumber mosaic virus that keeps...

Green Curled Ruffec is the classic French frisee endive (Cichorium endivia): a wide, lacy rosette of frilly, finely cut leaves with a pleasant bitterness that mellows in cool weather and turns sweet and tender when the pale center is blanched...

Ruby Red Swiss chard is the variety gardeners grow when they want color as much as harvest. Glossy, dark-green savoyed leaves rise on vivid ruby-red stems and veins, making it as at home in an ornamental border as in the...

Connecticut Field is the classic American heirloom pumpkin, the deep-orange, deeply ribbed kind you picture on every fall porch. Its large fruit usually ripens in the 10 to 25 pound range, big enough to carve into jack-o-lanterns yet still good...

Dwarf Siberian is a compact, incredibly cold-hardy kale prized for its frilly blue-green leaves and vigorous, productive growth. It stays low and bushy, making it ideal for small beds, containers, and cut-and-come-again harvesting, and it shrugs off hard frost better...