A pile of beets, ranging from purple to white

Growing Guide: Beets

Beets are tasty and easy to grow, and both the roots and leaves can be used in cooking. Plant in early spring, as soon as soil can be worked. You can plant successive plantings until midsummer.

Group of different watermelon varieties on a deck.

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Watermelons

Although watermelon requires a long growing season, if you start this sprawling plant early enough in the year, you can enjoy its fruits from late summer to early fall. Watermelons, like other vining plants, need plenty of space to grow.

A wooden box of red, orange, yellow, and white tomatoes of varying sizes

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Tomatoes

Tomato plants can be either determinate or indeterminate. Determinate plants will produce tomatoes that all ripen around the same time, while indeterminate plants will continue producing new growth and new fruits throughout the growing season.

A pile of small green and purple tomatillo fruits

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Tomatillo

This sprawling nightshade produces many husk-swaddled fruits. Saving seeds from tomatillo is as easy as saving seeds from tomatoes!

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Squash

There are four species of domesticated squash that are commonly grown in gardens: winter squash, pumpkin, summer squash, and gourds.

Loose green leaves of spinach in a glass bowl

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Spinach

Spinach is a nutrient-rich green that is easy to grow in the garden. As spinach requires long day lengths in conjunction with cooler temperatures, it may be more feasible for growers in the north to save seeds from spinach.

Swiss chard, a pile of leafy greens with red stems

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is a green with a unique taste. Plants can be lightly harvested in the first year for food, and then set to overwinter and produce seeds the following year.

A bowl of shelled small green beans next to a bowl of green bean pods

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Soybeans

In the US, soybeans are grown as a commodity crop and primarily used for oil and animal feed. However, soybeans are also an excellent crop for home gardeners, who can enjoy them in Asian inspired cuisines or more simply as steamed edamame.

A row of green stalks with large green leaves and small yellow and brown flowers on their tops

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Sorghum

Sorghum is grown for beer-making, syrup production, and for their edible grains. Some varieties of sorghum, such as broom corn, are used for crafts.

A close-up pile of long vegetables with red-pink skins

Growing Guides

Growing Guide: Shallots

This smaller cousin of the common onion belongs to the Allium cepa species, subspecies aggregatum. Shallots lend sweetness to dishes that ask for onions and they are just as easy to grow as their large-bulbing relatives.

Meredith Burks