Plant Library

vegetable

Better Boy is the workhorse slicing tomato found on nearly every garden-center bench, a vigorous indeterminate hybrid prized for dependable yields of large, round, deep-red fruit that average 10 to 16 ounces, often nearing a pound. The flavor is the classic balanced sweet-tart tomato taste and the flesh is firm enough to slice cleanly for sandwiches and burgers. Its real claim to fame is built-in disease resistance: the VFN designation means it shrugs off verticillium and fusarium wilts and root-knot nematodes, the soilborne problems that cut heirloom plants short. That resistance lets a single plant keep setting fruit from early summer right up to the first hard frost.

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Marketmore 76 is the standard open-pollinated slicing cucumber, bearing uniform, straight, dark-green fruit 8 to 9 inches long with crisp, mild flesh, on disease-resistant vines. A reliable home-garden workhorse since the 1970s, it begins bearing in about 65 to 70 days and keeps producing as long as the fruit is picked.

Albion is the premier day-neutral strawberry in North America, bred at UC Davis and released in 2004 (U.S. plant patent granted in 2006). Day-neutral means it ignores day length and fruits in flushes from late spring right through to fall frost, rather than in one June burst. The berries are large, long-conical, deep red inside and out, exceptionally firm, and among the sweetest and firmest of the day-neutral varieties, which is why Albion dominates both market and home plantings. Albion also carries strong resistance to Verticillium wilt, Phytophthora crown rot, and anthracnose - a rare combination that makes it forgiving for beginners.

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The French marigold is a compact, bushy annual smothered in gold, orange, and mahogany blooms from spring to frost, with pungent, ferny foliage. One of the most famous companion plants in the vegetable garden, it is valued not just for color but for suppressing root-knot nematodes in the soil and drawing hoverflies and other beneficial insects.

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Genovese is the classic Italian sweet basil, the variety prized for pesto, with large, fragrant, deep-green leaves and a rich, sweet, clove-and-anise aroma. A tender warm-season annual, it grows fast in summer heat and keeps producing as long as it is regularly pinched and kept from flowering.

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Green bell peppers are simply sweet bell peppers harvested before they finish ripening, while they are still crisp, mild, and grassy-fresh. This is the classic California Wonder type, a thick-walled, four-lobed, blocky pepper that has been the home-garden standard since the 1920s, with no heat at all. Left on the plant about two more weeks, the same fruit ripens from green to a sweeter red, in roughly 75 days from transplant.

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Blue Lake is a classic American snap bean famous for straight, round, deep-green pods that stay tender and stringless with a sweet, old-fashioned flavor, equally good fresh, canned, or frozen. The original is a vigorous pole bean that climbs to six feet and bears over a long season, ripening its first pods in about 60 to 65 days and producing until frost.

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Nantes is a classic carrot type producing slender, cylindrical, blunt-tipped roots six to seven inches long with smooth skin, a small core, and exceptionally sweet, crisp, mild flesh. Among the most popular home carrots for fresh eating, it matures in about 60 to 75 days and grows best in cool weather, sweetening further after fall frosts.

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Bluecrop is the worlds most widely planted northern highbush blueberry and the benchmark all others are measured against. Released by the USDA and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station in 1952, it forms a vigorous, upright 4 to 6 ft bush that is drought-tolerant, cold-hardy, and consistently productive, with large, light-blue, firm midseason berries of good flavor. It needs roughly 800 to 1,000 winter chill hours, so it suits zones 4 to 7. Bluecrop is partly self-fertile but yields larger berries and heavier crops when planted with a second highbush variety for cross-pollination.

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Cilantro is the fast, cool-season annual whose bright, citrusy leaves are essential to Mexican, Indian, and Asian cooking, while the same plant's dried seeds are the warm spice coriander. The Slow Bolt strain is bred to hold in leaf longer before bolting in heat, extending the harvest of tender foliage that is the toughest part of growing cilantro well.

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Black Beauty is a classic dark-green zucchini, a bush-type summer squash bearing glossy, slender fruit with tender, creamy flesh that is endlessly versatile in the kitchen. The plants are famously prolific, producing more than most families can keep up with from about 50 to 60 days, with fruit ready to pick just days after the blossoms open.

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The jalapeno is the most widely grown hot pepper in North America, a medium-heat chile rated about 2,500 to 8,000 Scoville units with thick crisp walls and a grassy, vegetal bite. Picked green it is the workhorse of salsas, nachos, poppers, and pickling; left to ripen red on the plant it grows sweeter and a touch hotter, and smoke-dried red jalapenos become chipotles. The compact, productive plants suit gardens and containers alike and set heavy loads of fruit over a long warm season, making one or two plants plenty for most households.

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Candy is an intermediate-day (day-neutral) hybrid sweet onion that forms big, slightly flattened, light-yellow globes - up to softball size - with sweet, juicy, low-sulfur flesh. Because it is day-neutral rather than long- or short-day, it bulbs well across most of the country, from the far North to the deep South, unlike region-locked sweet onions such as Vidalia (short-day) or Walla Walla (long-day). Like all sweet onions, its high sugar and water content makes it mild and pleasant raw on salads and burgers but means it does not keep long, storing only about two to three months.

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Heritage is the standard everbearing red raspberry, a primocane-fruiting variety that bears a light summer crop on second-year canes and a heavy fall crop on the current season's canes. Vigorous, hardy, and largely self-supporting, it is one of the easiest raspberries for home gardens, with the simplest pruning of any type and sweet, firm, flavorful berries.

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Buttercrunch is a popular butterhead lettuce forming a loose rosette of soft, buttery green leaves around a tender, blanched heart, with a sweet, mild flavor and a crisp center. An award-winning variety prized for tolerating heat better than most butterheads, it is slower to bolt and turn bitter, and it matures in about 55 to 65 days.

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A warm-season annual producing masses of ruffled trumpet flowers in every color from white through lavender, purple, red, pink, yellow, and bicolors. Long-blooming, easy to grow, and one of the best flowers for summer containers, hanging baskets, and garden borders. Also an effective trap crop for aphids and thrips near vegetable beds.

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Curly parsley is the tightly ruffled, deep-green form of the classic biennial herb, milder and more decorative than flat-leaf and the traditional garnish. Grown as an annual for its leaves, it forms dense 8 to 14 inch clumps that take light frost.

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Sugar snap peas are edible-pod peas eaten whole, combining the plump sweetness of a shelling pea with a crisp, stringless pod when young. Climbing vines crop heavily in cool weather, and the sweet, crunchy pods are a favorite for fresh snacking, salads, and quick stir-fries.

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Celebrity is a 1984 All-America Selections winner and one of the most dependable home-garden tomatoes ever bred. The semi-determinate plants grow to a tidy 3 to 4 feet yet keep setting medium-large 7 to 8 oz red fruit all season until frost, combining heavy early yields with rich, well-balanced flavor. Celebrity carries a broad disease-resistance package (verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt races 1 and 2, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus), which makes it one of the most forgiving choices for new growers.

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Honeycrisp is a modern favorite famous for its exceptionally crisp, juicy, explosively crunchy texture and balanced sweet-tart flavor. Developed at the University of Minnesota, it is very cold-hardy and stores unusually well for months, ripening in late summer to early fall, and like other apples it requires a different variety nearby for cross-pollination.

vegetable

A red bell pepper is simply a green bell left on the plant to fully ripen, turning from green through to deep red as it sweetens and develops its richest flavor and highest vitamin content. Sweet and crisp with no heat, blocky and thick-walled, it is excellent raw, roasted, or sauteed, and takes a few extra weeks on the plant to color up.

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The iconic tall annual sunflower producing massive seed-filled heads 12 to 18 inches across on 8 to 12-foot stalks. Edible seeds are high in protein and healthy fats. Flowers track the sun when young (heliotropism) before becoming fixed east-facing at maturity. One of the most productive and dramatic plants in any garden, attracting goldfinches, bees, and countless beneficial insects.

Boston Pickling is the classic American pickling cucumber, in commercial seed catalogs since 1877. The vigorous vines bear an abundance of 3 to 6 inch fruits with thin bumpy skin, dense crisp flesh, and a small seed cavity, which is what makes them so reliable for crunchy whole-pack pickles. Also excellent fresh.

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Spearmint is the common sweet mint, milder and less sharply cool than peppermint, with a clean, sweet flavor used in teas, sauces, salads, and drinks like mojitos and mint juleps. Like all mints it is a hardy perennial that spreads enthusiastically by runners and returns each spring, supplying fragrant leaves throughout the season.

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Bloomsdale is a classic savoy-leaf heirloom spinach with heavily crinkled, glossy dark-green leaves and a rich, sweet flavor. Slower to bolt than smooth-leaf types, this cold-hardy long-standing variety gives a longer spring and fall harvest and stands up to winter with protection.

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Triple Crown is the most productive thornless blackberry for home growers: large glossy berries with deep balanced sweet-tart flavor, ripening over a 5-week stretch in late summer. The semi-erect canes are vigorous and trained up a trellis for easy picking, and a single mature plant can yield 25 to 35 lb of fruit per season.

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Kentucky Wonder is the classic heritage pole snap bean, grown for well over a century for its 7 to 8 inch flat green pods and rich, old-fashioned bean flavor that is sweet and tender when picked young. The twining vines climb 6 feet or more and keep flowering and bearing right up to frost, so a single planting yields for weeks. Left on the vine, the same pods mature into plump seeds that can be shelled green or dried as the brown Kentucky Wonder dry bean, making it a true dual-purpose heirloom for fresh eating and storage.

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Early Girl is a popular early hybrid valued for ripening its first medium-sized, globe-shaped slicing tomatoes in just 50 to 60 days from transplant, weeks ahead of most varieties. The indeterminate vines keep producing reliable, full-flavored fruit all season, making it a dependable choice for short-season gardens or anyone impatient for the first ripe tomato.

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The Knock Out rose (Rosa 'Radrazz'), introduced in 2000, revolutionized rose growing by being almost foolproof. It is a rounded, bushy shrub rose, typically 3 to 4 ft, that produces flushes of cherry-red, lightly scented single flowers continuously from spring until frost. Crucially, it is self-cleaning (it drops spent blooms and reblooms without deadheading) and was bred for outstanding resistance to black spot and other diseases that plague traditional roses, so it needs no spraying. Cold hardy to about zone 5 and extremely heat- and drought-tolerant once established, it gives the look of a rose garden with a fraction of the fuss.

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English thyme is the common culinary thyme, a low, woody-stemmed Mediterranean perennial with tiny, intensely aromatic gray-green leaves, a foundation herb for stocks, roasts, and slow-cooked dishes. The tough little plants are evergreen in mild climates, draw bees when they bloom, and hold their flavor well through cooking and drying.

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Romaine, or cos lettuce, forms a tall, upright head of sturdy, elongated leaves with crisp ribs and a sweet, robust flavor, the classic lettuce for Caesar salads. More heat- and bolt-tolerant than tender butterheads, it matures in about 70 to 85 days and holds its quality well in the garden and the refrigerator.

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Concord is the classic American blue-black slipskin grape, intensely aromatic and sweet-tart, the grape behind traditional grape juice, jelly, and jam. A vigorous, cold-hardy, disease-tolerant vine, it is self-fruitful and forgiving, ripening its heavy clusters in early to mid fall, and a single well-tended vine can produce for decades.

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The cayenne is a long, slender, thin-walled hot pepper rated about 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units, several times hotter than a jalapeno, that ripens from green to brilliant red. Its thin walls dry easily, making it the classic pepper for grinding into cayenne powder and crushed red pepper flakes, as well as for hot sauces, in about 70 to 75 days.

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Imperator 58 is the classic supermarket carrot: 8 to 10 inches long, slender, tapered, and deep orange, with the uniform shape that made the Imperator type the standard for commercial production. The variety needs loose deep soil to size up properly; in heavy or rocky ground the roots fork and twist.

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A cheerful cool-season annual producing bicolor face-like flowers in purple, yellow, white, and combinations. Cold-hardy enough to bloom through light snow. One of the earliest and latest flowers of the season, bridging autumn and spring. Edible flowers used as garnishes and in salads. Classic for spring containers, window boxes, and early garden color.

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The classic American summer squash: bright yellow with a characteristic curved neck and bumpy skin. Harvest young at 6 to 8 inches for tender, sweet flesh. One of the most productive plants in any vegetable garden; a few plants will feed an entire family through summer.

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Greek oregano is the pungent, white-flowered subspecies that cooks mean by real oregano. Many plants simply labeled oregano are milder ornamental forms, but Greek oregano delivers the sharp, warm, peppery flavor essential to Mediterranean, Greek, and Mexican cooking. It is a low, spreading, woody-based perennial that forms a fragrant mat of small gray-green leaves, topped in summer by white flowers that bees and butterflies swarm. Tough and drought-proof once established, it thrives on heat and a bit of neglect and is one of the easiest, most rewarding culinary herbs to grow.

Red Onion is the sharp, colorful cooking onion with deep purple-red skin and crisp white flesh ringed in purple. Raw, it brings color and bite to salads, salsas, and sandwiches; roasted or caramelized it turns sweet and mellow. Most red onions sold for the North are long-day storage types that bulb when summer days stretch past about 14 hours, while short-day reds are grown in the South, so matching the variety to your latitude is the key to getting full-size bulbs. It is a cool-season crop planted in early spring and harvested in mid to late summer.

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Brown Turkey is a popular, easy-to-grow fig with brownish-purple skin and sweet, richly flavored pink-amber flesh, well suited to home gardens and containers. It is self-fruitful, needing only one plant, and where the season is long it can bear two crops a year: a light early breba crop on last year's wood and a heavier main crop in late summer and fall.

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Calabrese is the classic Italian green broccoli, producing a large blue-green central head followed by a steady supply of smaller side shoots after the main head is cut. A cool-season brassica maturing in about 60 to 90 days, it is the standard home-garden broccoli, valued for the long secondary harvest that can continue for weeks.

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Cherry Belle is the classic round, cherry-red salad radish, with crisp white flesh and a mild, clean bite, and one of the very fastest vegetables anyone can grow, going from seed to harvest in roughly three to four weeks. That speed makes it ideal for filling gaps between slower crops, marking rows of slow-germinating carrots, and giving beginners a quick, satisfying first success. It is a cool-season root that does best in the mild weather of spring and fall, and like all radishes it turns sharp and woody if rushed through heat.

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Cosmos is an airy, fast-growing annual with feathery foliage and a long summer-to-frost show of daisy-like blooms in pink, white, and magenta on tall, graceful stems. It thrives on neglect, flowering best in poor soil, and is a powerful magnet for bees, butterflies, and beneficial insects, making it as useful in the vegetable garden as it is pretty in the border or vase.

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Arp Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus 'Arp') is the benchmark cold-hardy rosemary, discovered in 1972 near the town of Arp in east Texas and prized for surviving winter temperatures down to about -10F. That hardiness extends dependable rosemary into zone 6, well beyond the mild-winter range of most varieties. It is an upright, open, vigorous shrub reaching 3 to 5 ft, with slightly longer, lighter gray-green, spruce-scented needles and pale blue flowers in spring. The flavor is full and resinous, excellent for roasts, breads, and grilling, and like all rosemary it is evergreen, drought-tough, and beloved by bees.

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Roma is the classic determinate paste tomato found in markets and gardens everywhere, valued for egg-shaped, meaty, low-moisture fruit with few seeds and thick walls that cook down into rich sauce, paste, and canned tomatoes. Each fruit runs about 2 to 3 ounces, and the compact bushy plants set nearly their whole crop in one concentrated flush rather than spreading it across the season. That habit is the whole point: it gives the cook a large batch of nearly identical fruit ready at the same time for a single big canning or sauce day. The plants are widely adapted and carry good resistance to verticillium and fusarium wilts.

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Crimson Sweet is a classic round, blocky watermelon with a pale green rind striped in dark green and crisp, sweet, deep-red flesh, with fruit typically weighing 15 to 25 pounds. The vigorous vines need a long, hot season, ripening in about 85 to 90 days, and the variety is prized for high sugar content and good disease resistance.

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The banana pepper is a mild, elongated, waxy yellow pepper that ripens through orange to red and grows sweeter as it colors. With little to no heat, from zero to about 500 Scoville units, it is a heavy-bearing favorite for fresh eating, stuffing, and especially pickling for sandwiches and salads.

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Snow peas are flat-podded peas eaten whole, pod and all, while the pods are still thin and the seeds barely formed, prized for their sweet crunch in stir-fries and salads. A frost-hardy cool-season climber, it crops in the cool shoulders of spring and fall and stops producing once summer heat sets in.

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A tough, drought-tolerant North American native perennial producing large pink daisy-like flowers with prominent dark spiky cones from mid-summer through fall. One of the most important late-season pollinator plants and an outstanding cut flower. Also the source of the herbal supplement echinacea. Extremely easy to grow and long-lived.

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Yukon Gold is a popular early-to-midseason potato with smooth, thin yellow skin and moist, buttery, golden flesh that is excellent boiled, mashed, or roasted. It sizes up faster than storage russets, in about 75 to 90 days, holds together well when cooked, and yields uniform, good-keeping tubers.

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Bing is the classic dark sweet cherry, producing large, firm, deep-mahogany fruit with rich, sweet flavor, the benchmark variety for fresh eating. The vigorous trees bear in early summer but need a long winter chill and a compatible second sweet cherry for pollination, since Bing cannot set fruit with its own pollen.

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Garden sage is a hardy, woody-stemmed perennial with soft, silvery-green leaves and a warm, savory, slightly peppery flavor classic in stuffing, sausage, and rich autumn dishes. A Mediterranean shrub that returns for years, it is handsome enough for the ornamental border, with spikes of blue flowers that draw bees.

Provider is a dependable early bush snap bean, one of the most reliable varieties for an early crop because it germinates well in cool soil and bears a heavy, concentrated set of round, meaty green pods in just about 50 days. The compact, self-supporting plants need no trellis and are a favorite for first sowings and successive plantings.

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Iceberg is the classic crisphead lettuce, forming a dense, round head of pale, crunchy, mild leaves, and it is the most heat-tolerant of the lettuces, the Great Lakes strain bred to head reliably in warmer conditions. The most demanding lettuce to grow well, it needs a longer, cool season of about 80 to 90 days to form a tight, full head.

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Sweet 100 is an indeterminate cherry tomato prized for huge yields of one-inch, candy-sweet red fruit borne in long, branching clusters. The tall vines start ripening in about 60 to 65 days and keep producing nonstop until frost, so a single well-staked plant can yield many hundreds of tomatoes over a season. The fruit is high in sugars but, like most cherry tomatoes, tends to split after heavy rain following dry spells, so keep moisture even and pick promptly to limit cracking.

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Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) is the classic cottage garden flower with tall spikes of dragon-mouth blooms in every color from pure white to deep burgundy, plus bicolors and pastels. A cool-season cut flower beloved by pollinators (especially bumblebees, which are heavy enough to trip the dragon-mouth open), Snapdragon is a short-lived perennial usually grown as a cool-weather annual for spring and fall bloom.

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Elberta is the most famous heirloom peach, a large, freestone variety with golden, red-blushed skin and sweet, juicy yellow flesh that pulls cleanly from the pit, excellent fresh, canned, or baked. Unlike many tree fruits it is self-fruitful, so a single tree bears well, ripening its heavy crop in mid to late summer.

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Copenhagen Market is a classic early green cabbage forming a solid, round, blue-green head about six to seven inches across with mild, crisp leaves good for slaws, kraut, and cooking. A dependable cool-season brassica, it matures in about 65 to 70 days from transplant and was bred to head uniformly on a compact plant that fits a home garden.

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Dill is a fast-growing annual herb with feathery blue-green foliage and a fresh, tangy, grassy flavor, indispensable for pickles, fish, and potato dishes, while its seeds season brines and breads. The tall, airy plants are quick to bolt into flat yellow flower umbels that draw beneficial insects, and Bouquet is a compact strain bred for abundant foliage.

German Extra Hardy is the gold-standard porcelain hardneck garlic for cold climates, with large bulbs holding 4 to 6 big easy-peel cloves under white wrappers tinged purple. The flavor is strongly pungent raw and sweetly mellow when roasted, with high sugar content, and the bulbs store easily for 6 months.

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Black Beauty is the classic large, glossy, deep-purple eggplant, an heirloom prized for its plump, oval fruit and creamy, mild flesh that is excellent grilled, roasted, or layered into parmesan. The sturdy plants produce a handful of big fruit each, maturing in about 80 days, with surprisingly early ripening for such a large eggplant.