Vegetables

Nearly everyone is told to buy a rhubarb crown. Seed is cheaper and gives you a batch of plants, but the seedlings vary and the first real harvest is further away. Here is the honest trade-off, and how to do it well.

Silverbeet keeps making leaves long after spinach has run to seed. Here is how to sow it, thin the clumps, feed it for leaf and pick it for months, zone by zone.

Brussels sprouts are one of the easiest winter crops to get wrong, and the reason is nearly always the sowing date. Here is when to sow in each Australian climate zone, and where the crop is not worth the bed space.

Parsnips have the worst germination reputation of any common vegetable, and the causes are few. Here is how to get a first crop up, and why cold makes the roots sweet.

Leeks are a long crop, not a hard one. Here is the autumn sowing, the dibber hole that makes the white shank, and what actually causes a leek to bolt.

Melons are not hard, they are just fussy about heat and water at the end. How to sow rockmelon and honeydew, how many fruit to leave on a vine and how to pick at peak sweetness.

A cucumber grown up a trellis is cleaner, straighter and easier to pick than one sprawled on the ground. How to sow, train, water and harvest cucumbers in an Australian summer.

Beans are the fastest return in the summer garden, as long as the soil is warm and you keep picking. The differences between bush, climbing and runner types, and how to grow each one.

Sweet corn is wind pollinated, so a short fat block beats a long thin row every time. Here is how to sow it, feed it, water it at the right moment and pick every cob at its sweetest.

Learn how to grow tomatoes from seed with this back-to-basics tutorial. The best gardening tips to growing tomatoes in your own garden.

Capsicums and chillies from seed Capsicums and chillies are close relatives grown for different ends, and they want the same things: warmth, a long...

Why cucumbers turn bitter Planting cucumbers beside sunflowers does not make them sweeter. Bitterness comes from cucurbitacins, natural compounds t...