Best Valerian Root Extract

Choose a well-drained site, and if you live in the south, pick a location with afternoon shade. Keep the plants well watered throughout the growing season, and give them plenty of room to roam—each plant can grow 3 feet wide.

To plant in gardens where warming plastic is in place, cut a hole through the plastic and plant the slip through the hole. Brush off excess soil with your fingers, but do not wash or rinse the harvested tubers.

My top priority was planting carrots, but I mixed in the daikon seeds as a companion crop. I asked a farmer friend who said that she always learned that you should plant daikon as a fall crop, not a spring crop.

Once the seedlings are about an inch tall, thin them to a spacing of 1 inch. Some of my favorite diminutive carrots are Romeo, Caracas, Oxheart, Parisienne, Thumbelina, Little Finger and Short ‘n' Sweet.

Packed with fiber, potassium, folic acid and manganese, these roots have been a staple crop since before the Roman Empire, though our modern, orb-shaped roots weren't developed until the 15th century.

In southern regions, shallots are planted in the fall for harvest the following spring, but here in Pennsylvania, I plant shallot sets in both the spring and the fall. Shallot bulbs are beautiful: They're tapered at both ends and have pink or brown, papery...

This will keep your family in radishes, without overwhelming you with too many. In my USDA zone 5 garden, I start sowing seeds of these root crops by the first week of April. Carrot seeds take a very long time to germinate, so be patient with them.

Sweet Potato Varieties There are two main types of sweet potatoes: dry flesh and moist flesh. The crop has a relatively low nitrogen requirement, as excessive nitrogen fertilization produces heavy top growth but fewer underground tubers.

No matter why you choose to grow fennel, it can be a valuable and delicious crop for you, your farmers market customers and your local pollinators. Don't be intimidated if you're a beginning gardener.

I sink the fork at least 12 inches into the soil because some of the tubers can be quite deep, especially if the soil is soft. I hope your 2014 potato harvest was as prolific as mine.

We planted our horseradish plants in a raised bed with wooden sides. They thrive on being managed. With the leaves dropping, I know that my horseradish ( Armoracia rusticana ) will soon die back and return its fierce energy to its roots .

Sow all varieties in August for late-season harvest and overwintering. Soil requirements: Rich, fertile soil, high in nitrogen. Spinach can be grown under floating row cover to prevent leaf miner and aphid damage.

If a soil test indicates a need for this essential nutrient, adding an organic phosphorus fertilizer , like bonemeal or rock phosphate, to the planting area a few weeks before seeding will ensure the growing roots have ready access to this nutrient right...

Because phosphorus becomes tied-up and unavailable for plant use at lower pH levels, it's important to maintain an average soil pH of around 6.5 in the vegetable garden in order to enable the plants access to plenty of phosphorous.

Let me tell you why you want to keep an eye out next time. You might have seen them at the farmers' market , but if you didn't know to look you could easily have missed them. My family was skeptical the first time I served them, especially my father,...

Light mulching —in the form of a thin layer of grass clippings—can help keep the ground moist. Nearly every gardener faces a nemesis or two, and not necessarily in the form of aphids or fusarium wilt.

When to plant: Best planted in late summer for fall harvests, but can be grown season-long. Direct-seed when soil temperatures are between 60 and 70 degrees F. Roasted turnips are delicious, as are braised turnip greens with a touch of garlic and olive...

Directly seeding them into your garden in the early spring or late summer will ensure they don't get pithy, too spicy or bolt as fast, which are the most common radish complaints. So long as there is a little compost and some loose, well-drained soil...

They store better than your average turnip—up to six month under the right conditions—so they make a great contribution to your late winter meals in addition to your fall market table.

Clearly the tree was not carefully dug and wrapped, as I'd naively assumed. Several inches of heavy dirt fell off from around the trunk, revealing that the tree had been buried much too deeply in the pot.

Wireworms are the larvae of several species of click beetles, while root maggots are larval flies. Favorite sources of organic phosphorus include rock phosphate and bone meal . Harvest On Time Consult your seed packet's “days to maturity” number when...

As consumers of fruits and vegetables, the compounds found in these different plant pigments not only provide us with nutrition, but many of them also contain antioxidants with anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.

Saving Small Potatoes For Spring Planting The Art of Doing Stuff/Flickr With a little extra effort, you can save your own seed potatoes for next year's plantings. Get way down under the plant so you don't spear any spuds.

They're boring, knobby, brown orbs that are about as unassuming as you can get. For the most pleasing flavor, be sure to leave the roots in the ground until they've been frosted at least two or three times.

Drain the celeriac (discard the lemon water) and then add the celery, celeriac, potatoes, shallots, and parsley to the pot. Squeeze the juice of 1- 2 lemons into a large bowl of cold water and keep it close by as you work with the celery root.

It is quite a beautiful plant. This year marks the first time I've tried growing this warm-climate vegetable, and I'm going to have to work hard to see it through winter. That being said, many of the other veggies in my garden are still going strong.

While the celery root is boiling, put the flour in one bowl, the eggs in another and the bread crumbs in a third bowl. While the water is heating, peel and scrub the celery roots. It will take several months for the seedlings to show signs of ample growth,...