Vegetable articles
"an onion can make you cry but there has never been a vegetable that can make you laugh" - Will Rogers (1879-1935) - He obviously never grew a funny shaped carrot or parsnip or even fashioned a phalus out of a courgette and two tomatoes.
A taster of two of our favorite vegetables
Potatoes
Potatoes are a wonderful crop for the first timer and much loved by many organic vegetable gardeners. If it is your first year on your plot then I recommend growing growing a few plants, the soil gets turned over when you dig them up in preparation for the next crop and they are also relatively easy to grow. more...
It is often believed that Sir Walter Raleigh was the first to introduce the potato to Europe. It appears however this is only part of the story. Sir Walter never set foot on the North American shores and only instructed, ran and organised various landing parties and colonies. One of these colonies in Virginia (Now North Carolina) fell into difficulties and the survivors had to be rescued by Sir Francis Drake on his return from battling with the Spaniards in the Caribbean. On the way Drake had stopped in Cartagena (Columbia) to take on supplies including many native South American plants including some potato tubers and tobacco.more...
Beetroot
It is thought that the beetroot evolved from wild sea beet (Beta vulgaris sub species maritima). Wild sea beet grows all over the coastlines of Europe and Western Asia and has rather small unappetising roots. The plant was sometimes used as a food but this would have mainly been the leaves and stems rather than the root. However references in around 300 BC claim the Greek cultivation of the plant where varieties of beet plants with edible roots were grown. It is difficult to accurately date the beetroot as unlike seeds and grains, roots and leaves rot away leaving no trace for archaeologists to study. more...
It is a popular misconception that the colour of beetroot is due to a pigment known as anthocyanin, the pigment in red cabbage. It is in fact due to the purple pigment betacyanin and a yellow one betaxanthin known collectively as betalins. There are other breeds of beetroot that are not the usual deep red, such as Burpee's Golden' with an orange red skin and yellow flesh and Albina Vereduna which is white. These have a greater or lesser distribution of the two betalin pigments. more....