Southern Gardening

The cool season is the perfect time to enjoy the goodness of home grown greens. And you know what? Besides being good for you, they can look pretty darn good in the garden too. Southern Gardening has looked at the colorful ornamental kale in the landscape but I think some gardeners overlook the ornamental value of the traditional culinary varieties. This super food isn’t just flat green leaves anymore. Let’s take a look at some varieties I’m growing in my sub-irrigated EarthBox trial garden. As you can see, there’s quite a variety of color and texture. Here are a couple of my favorites.

During the winter months I like to answer the questions I get from the fans of Southern Gardening. Let’s take a look a couple of these questions. Our first question is from Stan in Picayune, MS. Hey Gary, I’ve noticed on my satsuma orange a new stem that has big thorns on it. Is this some kind of mutation? Stan, thanks for the question. The best producing Satsuma plants are usually grafted onto a vigorously growing rootstock. One problem that can occur from time to time for home gardener is the root stock will sometimes start to outgrow the grafted shoots.