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How to Plant and Grow Tomatoes
The tomato is native to semi-tropical western South America. Tomatoes are warm-season annuals. To grow strong and healthy and to bear fruit, tomatoes require sun, warm air and soil temperatures, and rich, loamy, evenly moist soil. Tomatoes grow best when the soil temperature is at least 55°F (12°C) and the air temperature ranges between 65° […] More
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How to Grow Sweet Bell Peppers
Peppers come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and flavors. From mild, sweet bell peppers to fiery, spicy chili peppers, there is a pepper to fit everyone’s taste. If you’re looking to add a little something extra to your garden, consider growing some peppers! Sweet peppers and hot peppers can be grown from seeds […] More
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How to Plant and Grow Eggplant
Eggplant is a very tender warm season perennial grown as an annual. Grow eggplant in the warmest, frost-free time of the year. The edible fruit can be long and slender or round or egg-shaped fruit. The fruit is creamy-white, yellow, brown, purple, or sometimes almost black. Eggplant is a small- to medium-sized bush vegetable that […] More
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How to Plant, Grow, and Harvest Okra
Okra is a tender, heat-loving annual best grown in very warm climates. It is grown for the peculiar, mucilaginous taste of its immature pods, commonly called gumbo. Okra is primarily a tropical crop, but it can be grown where cucumbers or tomatoes are hardy. To produce the best, crop, however, it wants much summer heat […] More
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Five Ways to Cook Sweet Peppers
Eat sweet peppers raw in salads, or eat them steamed, stir-fried, roasted, grilled or roasted, or stuffed. Use them in casseroles or rice dishes. Sweet peppers are in season from late spring through late summer. Types of sweet peppers Sweet peppers are warm-season annuals in temperate regions and perennials in tropical climates. Sweet peppers are […] More
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How to Plant, Grow, and Harvest Hot Peppers
Hot peppers are distinguished from sweet peppers simply by their pungency or hotness of flavor. There are thousands of hot pepper varieties in the world. (This is the case because peppers easily cross-pollinate to produce new kinds.) The hotness of a pepper is determined by a number of blister-like sacs of capsaicinoids on the interior […] More
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How to Grow Hot Chili Peppers
Hot peppers are most easily grown from transplants. Grow hot chili peppers in the warmest, frost-free time of the year. Start hot pepper seed indoors 8 to 10 weeks before the date you intend to set peppers into the garden. Peppers can be seeded in the garden or transplanted out 2 to 3 weeks after […] More
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Heirloom and Hybrid Tomatoes
Do heirloom tomatoes (or other heirloom vegetables, for that matter) have benefits or advantages when compared to hybrid tomatoes? The answer is not simple. Natural selection of tomatoes Most of the crops we eat today, including tomatoes, have evolved from less desirable wild plants. Over generations and generations, humans have selectively created many plant varieties […] More
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How to Choose a Tomato for Your Garden
How do you choose which tomatoes to grow in your garden? Here’s a suggestion: Make a list of how you and those in your household enjoy tomatoes. Consider the 5-S’s— salads, sandwiches, sauces, soups., and salsa. There are tomatoes perfect for each of these uses. Plant 1 to 3 tomato plants for each household member […] More
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Growing Early-Season Tomatoes for Great Taste
Early-season tomatoes ripen fruit 55 to 70 days after being transplanted to the garden as 6-week-old plants. Because great tomato flavor comes with just the right combination of sugars and acids that are the product of sunlight and photosynthesis, early-season tomatoes are often dismissed as less tasty than mid- and late-season tomatoes (which require 80 […] More
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How to Plant, Grow, and Harvest Watermelon
The watermelon is a tender, warm-weather annual. Watermelons along with muskmelons and cantaloupes are sometimes called summer melons. They thrive in hot weather. Watermelons are easy to grow. They need plenty of sun, nutrient-rich soil, and plenty of water. Get watermelon started in the home garden after all danger of frost has passed and your […] More
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How to Plant and Grow Melons
Melons grow best when summers are hot, dry, and almost always sunny. The best-flavored melons will come from the hottest-growing regions. Both cloudy and rainy weather will slow and all but stop melon growth. Melons grow best when both the soil and air temperature are at least 70°F (21°C). You can sow seeds directly in […] More