Seems like some of you were surprised to discover that I don’t always follow all of the conventional and established rules of vegetable gardening: “I really like your website… your honesty about breaking a cardinal rule and not hardening off your cool weather seedlings, got my attention!”

I just wanted to share some of the heirloom eggplants that I’m growing and harvesting from the vegetable garden this summer. Previous articles covered tips for growing eggplants and discussed the international roots of heirloom eggplant varieties.

Here’s a gardening question about growing and harvesting broccoli that was sent in by Joyce from Inman, Kansas: “I started broccoli plants in the spring and they are now sprouting and not forming heads. From what I have read, fall broccoli is the best. Can I keep these plants alive until I want to produce in the fall, or do I need to plant again?

My passion has always been for growing vegetables and creating attractive gardens that also yielded delicious produce. In that light here’s my Top Ten List of Reasons for Growing Vegetables rather than purely ornamentals in the backyard garden and landscape:

Despite the similarities in habit and appearance to the popular tomato vine, you won’t find tomatillos growing in too many backyard vegetable gardens. This unusual plant is rare in the home garden, but the fruits are popular in salsas and many other ethnic recipes.

I received an interesting comment yesterday from an avid gardener who responded to my Top 5 Gardening Tips post. She agreed with my gardening tips for the most part, but raised an interesting question regarding the nutritional differences of food produced through organic gardening vs. conventional growing methods.

I’ve published a number of articles related to growing garlic here on this site, so I thought that I knew a little bit about gourmet garlic and growing it in the home garden. But after listening to a workshop on garlic presented by David Stern of the Garlic Seed Foundation, I realized that there is much more to discover about the workings of this amazing plant.

This year’s crop of fall-grown broccoli is looking very, very good! Yes, I’m welcoming in the month of December by harvesting an impressive crop of large heads of nutritious broccoli from the fall vegetable garden. This autumn season was ideal for growing terrific broccoli.