What Are The Southern Favorite Vegetable?

My family and I live here in the South and in the fall, one of the South's favorite vegetables, comes under the name of 'greens'. Down here in the south, the 'greens' consists of collards, mustard, turnip, and other  greens grows real good in the vegetable garden, and it is an excellent time to plant them.

Greens are real good for the home vegetable garden, because they are very easy to grow and they produce a lot of greens for the family, friends, and neighbors. Another good reason to grow greens in the winter, is because this is a great way to keep the vegetable garden producing through the winter.

Turnips and mustard are very  fast-growing greens, and I can harvest them as early as five or six weeks after I plant them. I can either harvest the whole plant or I can just crop, which means I am just going to remove the lower, larger leaves.  When I crop my green plants, I am harvesting some of the plant's leaves and this allows the plant to continuing growing. This allows me to be able to extend the harvest.

Sometimes, we have a mild winter, and when we do, I can cropped my turnips and mustard and have them in late winter or early spring.I have to remember that cropping my turnips, it will reduce the size of the root, so I reserve a portion of my turnips for root production. On these plants, I will not harvest any leaves.The leaves use photosynthesis to produce food that is transferred to the roots for storage. That storage root develops into nice-size turnips ready to harvest in eight or nine weeks.

Collard greens can be grown year-round, but fall is the best time to plant collard greens and when they get a frost on them, this will make them sweeten, so they are more tastier. I plant the seeds two inches apart, and then I will thin the plants out to a space of ten to twelve inches between plants. I then harvest them by cropping the older, larger leaves. Collards tolerate higher temperatures, better than any of the other types of greens. They are very cold tardy and they can survive temperatures in the 20 degrees without damage.

When I was growing up here, we always had gardens year-round.