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Place: The Mediterranean Uses: Salads, stir fries, soups, sandwiches, pesto and sauces Fun Fact: Arugula is also often called rocket; both names derive from the original Latin name of the plant, “eruca.” As he was developing his botanical taxonomy, Carl Linneaus followed, naming arugula Eruca...

Some people see winter time gardening as a gambler's game. I prefer to look at it as an opportunity to experiment and learn how to work with the weather... not against it. My first foray into winter gardening was typical of a coastal New England...

America’s industrial food system has waged war on our most fundamental means of nourishing ourselves. Vegetables once celebrated for their nutritional content have been stripped of their superfood status and reduced to merely a flavorless vessel for pesticides. Supermarket produce aisles are bursting at the...

Have you ever found yourself with a midsummer garden full of burned-out peas, bolted lettuces and zucchini the size of baseball bats and thought, “Gee, is my garden season already over?” If so, let us introduce you to the joys of succession sowing! Many crops...

  In the grip of this current spell of hot weather across much of the U.S., just before the summer solstice (this year on June 21st), it might be hard to remember that the start of the fall gardening season is just around the corner....

Seeds have been saved and traded for thousands of years. For virtually the entire time, all innovation crop improvement was de facto within the public domain, the property of the commons--everybody. The seeds themselves belonged to whoever had them, but the genes they contained belonged...

In 1944, Vice President Henry A. Wallace undertook an expedition to China and the Soviet Union. Coming at a critical time in World War II, with Wallace facing political headwinds at home, the 51-day, 27,000 mile trip was an audacious journey by any measure. A...

Baker Creek is enjoying glorious summer weather this week. The sun is shining and the breeze is blowing. Today we took a stroll through our gardens to harvest one of the best kept culinary secrets: a mouth watering, almost succulent green, high in omega three...

Chili peppers are a global crop with roots in the ancient world of the Americas. Christopher Columbus took them back to Spain in 1493, but it was Portuguese explorers who planted the worldwide spread of chilies when they carried seeds from Brazil to India a...

by William Woys Weaver Introduction Nearly a century has passed since the Roughwood Seed Collection was informally started, and it has now grown to approximately 5,000 seed varieties from around the world. Read more about the journey of this family collection here. The Beginning of...

There are so many great choices for succession planting in July and August, and while the cold weather feels a long way off, now is the time to plant for a great cool-weather harvest. Remember: your fall garden starts in the summer! It takes a...

“Never let go of that pea,” his Aunt Maddie would always tell J.T. Harris.  He didn’t -- and he also did one better.  A few years ago, after a visit to Baker Creek, J.T. sent a handful of his family’s heirloom clay peas (a cowpea)...

From formal flower beds to carefree cottage gardens and wildflower fields, adding spring-flowering bulbs to your design can take your landscape to greater heights. Whether you are planning to plant a great swath of scented hyacinth or small smattering of dainty daffodils, here are a...

With photography by Debra-Lynn Vlietstra Sunlight pierces through the trees illuminating an old boat at a Chacra farm near the Amazon. Situated overlooking a tributary of the Amazon River, Iquitos, Peru is a bedraggled yet beautiful city, considered to be the gateway to the jungle. It is here,...

Depending on your point of view, superhot peppers are either Satan’s handiwork or a devilish means of achieving a hurts-so-good endorphin high.   People have been eating and enjoying hot peppers for thousands of years, of course, and they are an essential ingredient in many...

Bevin Cohen is a writer, herbalist, heirloom seed historian, and self-professed 'bean nerd.' With his wife, Heather, he operates Small House Farm in Sanford, Michigan. Heather and Bevin have also helped develop a thriving network of seed libraries in their home state.  Bevin's exuberant approach...