Some vegetables really need to hire better PR people. The poor sweet potato suffers from being confused with the yam. No relation. And the potato. No relation. Sweet potatoes are high in fiber and good sources of Vitamins A & C. How many sweet foods can claim that?

Although they’re available year round, they’re in season in November and December, making them popular holiday foods. But did you ever think of growing your own sweet potatoes and having a few baby sweet potatoes to snack on in early fall? Or harvesting sweet potato greens all summer? Unfortunately sweet potatoes need a fairly long growing season and a good amount of space, but it’s nice to try growing everything at least once, just to know what they’re really supposed to taste like.

Looking for Something Different for the Holiday Table?

• Sweet Potato Patties
• Kurikinton Recipe (Japanese New Year Food)
• Caribbean Spiced Sweet Potatoes
• Vegan Pralined Sweet Potatoes

Photo by Scott Bauer. Provided by USDA Ag. Research Service.

Featured Plant: Sweet Potatoes originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 01:01:56.

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Plant names can be very confusing. One person’s ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ is another’s ‘Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate’. Then there are those taxonomy enigmas where Actaea is the plant formerly known as Cimicifuga. My feeling is, if the person you’re talking to knows what you’re talking about, it doesn’t really matter if you’ve got the right name or know how to pronounce it in Latin.

The only time it’s truly important that you get the name of a plant right is when you are shopping for a specific plant. The full Latin name will guarantee you get the plant you intended. But even then, it’s not important to know the difference between cultivar and variety. Where these terms factor in is if you’re planning to propagate more plants. So what’s the difference?

Variety

Varieties happen naturally. Plant varieties are changes in a plant species that occur in nature, through cross-pollination, mutation and adaptation. For instance, when a white flowering variety is discovered of a plant that has only been known to bloom pink.

Most varieties will produce seed that grows a plant just like them.

Variety names follow the species and are always italicized and lower case, for example, alba: Baptisia leucantha alba. (Older nomenclature sometimes designated varieties by preceding the name with the abbreviation var.)

Cultivar

Cultivar is a contraction of “cultivated variety”. Cultivars are plants that have been intentionally bred to have certain characteristics, like purple foliage or more petals. Cultivars don’t occur naturally.

Cultivars usually do not grow true from seed and will need to be propagated by some means other than seed, like grafting, cuttings or repeated hybridization. However they are only considered a cultivar if the distinguishing characteristics that make them unique from the original plants are retained when they are propagated.

Cultivar names are not italicized. They appear after the species name and are enclosed in single quotes, for example: Coreopsis verticillata ‘Zagreb’. (Older nomenclature sometimes designated cultivars by preceding the name with the abbreviation cv.)

Gardening Question of the Week: What’s the Difference Between a Variety and a Cultivar? originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 06:36:38.

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I have a love/hate relationship with fall. I bet a lot of you do, too. It’s not that I hate winter; I actually enjoy winter sports and there’s nothing to compare with the sunrise after a snow storm. Still, I’d rather be outside gardening.

Fall color is nature’s way of easing us into the bleakness of February, in northern climates. One last hurrah and then hunker down and be patient. All the more reason to celebrate fall and that’s just what the photographers in our October Garden Photo Challenge did. It was total eye candy and very hard to come to a consensus on the winning photos. But we’ve reached our decision and here they are, the winners of the Fall Color Photo Challenge.

The Nov/Dec challenge has already been posted. It’s Holiday Plants, appropriately enough. And by that we mean anything you do with plants, to celebrate and decorate for any of the upcoming holidays. Centerpieces, cornucopias, pots on the porch, decorations on the mantle. Share your holidays with us.

Congratulations to this month’s winners and thank you to everyone who submitted photos!

1st Place Photo: Fall Solitude.

Submitted by AmrJoe76

And the Winners Are…Fall Color Photo Challenge originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 06:45:26.

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Maples get all the attention in the fall, but there are plenty of other trees that put on a decent display. I’m especially fond of oak trees at any time of year. There’s an oak across the street from me that never seems to drop its leaves. They’re still out there, hanging on, well into early spring.

This year we had a bumper crop of acorns. One day when I went out to get the mail I was literally pelted with the little nuts, as they fell by the bucketful in the breeze. By now the squirrels have safely buried them in all my outdoor containers. Still, I think every yard should have an oak. They’re long-lived and give stature to your yard. About’s Guide to Landscaping breaks down the fall foliage merits of different species of oaks, to help you decide which you might like to plant.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti

Growing Acorns originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 01:01:21.

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I’m an unabashed vegetable lover and even on Thanksgiving, meat is just an accompaniment to my veggies. This year, instead of matching your wine to your Turkey, choose a variety that will bring out the best in the vegetables you grew and stored for the harvest festival. Here’s a cheat sheet from The Wine Guide by Williams-Sonoma and more in depth pairings from the San Fransisco Chronicle for pairing wine with everything from avocados to zucchini. Here are a couple of starter tips:

1. Wine pairs better with cooked vegetables than with raw vegetables
2. Roasted and charred vegetables pick up the tannins in red wine

Photo: © Marie Iannott

A Toast to this Season’s Harvest Pairing Wine with Vegetables originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 01:01:30.

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The longer I garden, the more I love shrubs. I am utterly delighted with every new Deutzia and Weigela that comes out, but I would never forsake my old favorites, like lilacs, hydrangeas and viburnums.

There are over 150 species of viburnums that grow from Zone 2 through 9. These are long-lived and fuss free shrubs that can provide colorful berries for the birds, brilliant fall color and sometimes even fragrance. You’re probably familiar with at least a few Viburnums already, like Korean spice, with pink buds that open to white, clove-scented snowballs, the American Cranberry Bush, with it’s lacecap flowers and clusters of red berries and the showy Doublefile viburnum, with it’s intense orange-red fall leaves set off by almost deep red berries.

Viburnums, as a group, are versatile. There are many native species and there’s certain to be one that will suit your growing conditions, no matter how difficult. If you’re looking to add some four season interest to your yard, a viburnum could be just what you need.

• Choosing and Growing Viburnums
• Viburnum Leaf Beetle
• Flowers of Koreanspice Viburnum or Korean Spicebush (Viburnum carlesii)
• Berries on Smooth Witherod Viburnum (Viburnum nudum)

Photo: © Marie Iannotti

Featured Plant: Viburnum originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 01:01:57.

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Someone in the About Gardening Forum wanted to know if pruning their raspberry plants now, rather than waiting until late winter, would have any effect on the amount of raspberries the plants produce. I’ve always heard that leaving the canes in tact helps the plants make it through winter, although I’m not entirely sure why. We’d love to hear from other raspberry growers, about when you do your pruning. Do any of you cut your raspberries back at the end of the season and have you noticed any differences or problems?

• Pruning Raspberries in Fall Forum Thread
• When to Prune Raspberries and Blackberries

Photo: Armin Baldemair / Stock.xchng.

Gardening Question of the Week: Can I Prune My Raspberries in the Fall? originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 01:01:15.

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For many of us, the shrubs in front of our homes are about the only gardens we see throughout winter. While there’s a movement to get us thinking about alternatives to foundation plantings, shrubs still rule. If you’re not yet willing to replace your yews and rhododendrons with perennials and vegetables, you still might want to think about sprucing up your curb appeal. David Beaulieu has a foundation planting photo gallery of inspiration for you to mull over and compare what you have with what it could be.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti

A Good Foundation Planting originally appeared on About.com Gardening on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 01:05:42.

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Back in October, there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding NASA’s project of crashing a LCROSS satellite into the moon to determine if there is in fact water on the moon. While it was initially believed by spectators and researchers alike that the mission was a big failure, since there was no visible lunar dust or any other substances that resulted immediately from the cash; NASA says today that it actually was a success, indicating that the moon has a substantial water supply.

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Source: Green Options