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Alliance of Native Seedkeepers Brewed in Colerain, North Carolina The practical library

The practical library

Growing Guides & Planting Advice

Find crop guides, planting calendars, seed-starting help, soil guidance, pest diagnosis, harvesting information, and practical seed-saving instructions.

Searchable. Find the crop, problem, story, or update you need. Complete. Browse every published article with working pagination. Rooted. From a Native-led seed company in rural North Carolina.

Growing Guides by Crop

92 articles in this topic

Spring Rapini broccoli rabe producing tender leafy flowering shoots
Growing guide

Broccoli Rabe vs. Rapini vs. Broccolini: Names, Flavor & Growing

Broccoli rabe, broccoli raab, and rapini usually name the same leafy flowering-shoot crop in Brassica rapa. Broccolini is a different Brassica oleracea crop selected for long tender stems and small florets. The distinction changes flavor, harvest timing, and which flowering crops can cross with saved seed.

Deeply curled green mustard leaves ready for cool-season harvest
Seed saving & varieties

Mustard Greens: Types, Flavor, Planting & Seed Saving

Mustard greens range from broad smooth leaves to deeply cut frills, from mild young salad leaves to strong mature cooking greens. Variety, weather, leaf age, and soil moisture all change flavor. Choose the growth habit and harvest stage that match how you plan to eat them.

Bulb onions hanging indoors to cure with dry necks and skins
What to plant now

Onion Seeds, Sets, or Transplants? Choose the Right Start for Your Climate

Onion seed offers broad variety choice and clean starts but needs time. Sets are small dormant bulbs that establish quickly but can bolt or offer limited variety choice. Transplants balance speed and selection. Day length class must match latitude or bulbs may never size correctly.

Glass Gem corn showing multicolored translucent flint and popcorn kernels
Seedkeeping, foodways & history

Glass Gem Corn: Documented History, Growing, Pollination & Seed Saving

Glass Gem is a multicolored open-pollinated flint and popcorn-type corn grown to full dry maturity. Plant it in a compact block, isolate it from other flowering corn, protect water during tasseling and silking, dry the ears thoroughly, test the grain for popping or meal, and save balanced seed from many healthy plants rather than one spectacular ear.

Ripe Cherokee Purple tomatoes with dusky rose-purple skin and dark shoulders
Seedkeeping, foodways & history

Cherokee Purple Tomato: History, Growing, Ripeness & Seed Saving

Cherokee Purple is a large, indeterminate, open-pollinated slicing tomato prized for dusky rose-purple fruit and rich smoky-sweet flavor. Start seed indoors 6 to 8 weeks before frost, transplant into warm soil, install heavy support, keep moisture even, and judge ripeness by overall color, aroma, and slight softness rather than waiting for the green shoulders to disappear.

Freshly harvested garlic bulbs with stems attached in a ventilated crate
Seed saving & varieties

Types of Garlic and How to Plant It: Hardneck, Softneck, Elephant Garlic, and Climate Fit

Hardneck garlic generally performs best where winters are cold enough to support its growth cycle and produces edible scapes. Softneck garlic commonly stores longer and adapts well to milder regions. Elephant garlic is a leek relative, not true garlic, and has a different flavor and growth pattern.

Dense mature clump of culinary lemongrass
Seed starting & germination

How to Grow Lemongrass from Seed, Divisions, or Grocery-Store Stalks

Lemongrass can be grown from seed, divisions, or viable rooted stalks, but each method has a different timeline and certainty. Give plants warmth, sun, rich moisture-retentive soil, and enough container or bed space for a large clump.

Ripe watermelon and healthy vines illustrating heat, space, pollination, and harvest
Seed starting & germination

How to Grow Watermelon from Seed: Heat, Space, Pollination, and Ripeness

Plant watermelon after frost when the root zone is warm, protect young plants from cold and beetles, give vines room, keep water steady through fruit sizing, protect pollinators, and judge ripeness with several clues rather than thumping alone.

Healthy squash plants growing from warm-season seed
Seed starting & germination

How to Grow Squash from Seed: Summer, Winter, Zucchini, and Pumpkins

Plant squash after frost in warm soil, choose bush or vining varieties that fit the site, protect tender roots, maintain steady moisture, remove row cover at bloom, watch the crown and leaf undersides for pests, and harvest at the stage required by the crop.

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