Rockmelon, or cantaloupe, are large fruit that grow on vines that trail along the ground. Each melon can weigh between 1 and 2kg and one vine can produce around 4 to 6 melons. Rockmelons are round or oval in shape and have a textured brown skin that looks like it has been covered in netting. When the melon is cut […]
Rainbow chard is exactly the same as silverbeet except its stems are red, yellow, pink and purple; all the colours of the rainbow. Some people mass plant it in their garden beds with their flowers and shrubs because the stems are so beautiful and the leaves are a deep, glossy green. Just like silverbeet, rainbow […]
Everyone who has ever eaten Italian food such as pizza would have seen sweet basil as it is used so much in Mediterranean cooking. It adds a sweet, aniseed type flavour that is unlike any other herb. The sweet basil plant doesn’t like cold weather so in Australia it is mostly grown from late spring […]
Radishes come in all sizes and shapes including long like a carrot but the most common are the red, round radishes which are generally eaten raw. Radishes grow really quickly and can be grown successively in the vegetable garden all year round. They are also delicious in salads because they add a crunchy texture and a […]
Sugar snap peas are plump little pods that grow like normal peas from a vine. Each pod contains round peas but unlike other peas, the whole sugar snap pod is eaten. They are deliciously sweet can be eaten as soon as they are picked. The vines that the sugar snap peas grow on climb up trellises or climbing frames so that […]
Pak choi is from the cabbage family and is used in lots of Asian dishes. It has other names as well including ‘bok choy’ or ‘Chinese white cabbage’. It has thick, glossy stems with large green leaves which grow upright from the base to form one whole vegetable. It is best to grow pak choi in […]
Pumpkins are one of the most versatile of all vegetables because it can be used in savoury and sweet dishes. It’s a lot of fun to grow as the vines creep along the ground and the bright orange pumpkins start to appear from under the massive leaves. Although some varieties of pumpkin can grow to be […]
Lettuce is so easy to grow that it should be in every vegetable garden and ‘cut and come again’ varieties are possibly the best of the bunch. ‘Cut and come again’ means that, instead of harvesting the whole lettuce in one go, only the leaves are picked leaving the smaller ones to keep growing. This way, one lettuce […]
Spring onions are from the same family as common globe onions but instead of having the large bulb at the base, spring onions have slender white stems with green strappy leaves on the top. They can be grown throughout most of the year. Spring onions are sometimes called bunching onions because they tend to grow in […]
Leek is a strange name for a vegetable but it really is an interesting one to grow. Leeks are related to onions but their flavour is more mild and much sweeter. Leek are a cylindrical vegetable that grows straight up with a white stem that is between 3 to 6cm wide and then green, strappy […]
