Tomato, is today the most popular garden vegetable in America. For many years, however, tomatoes (then called “love apples”) were considered poisonous and were grown solely for their ornamental value. Tomatoes are usually easy to grow and a few plants provide an adequate harvest for most families.
Radish is one of the nutritious root vegetables featured in both raw salads as well as in main recipes. This widely used root vegetable belongs to the family of Brassica. In Chinese culture, radish along with cabbage and soybean curd (tofu) believed as healthy and sustenance food items. A popular Chinese proverb goes like this, “eating pungent radish and drinking hot tea, let the starved doctors beg on their knees.”
Potato is a starchy root vegetable of Central American origin. This humble tuber is one of the most widely grown root crops, and one of the cheapest staple food ingredients consumed all over the world. Botanically, it belongs to perennial subspecies of Solanum tuberosum, in the Solanaceae family.
The onion is an edible bulb. While it is a vegetable at heart, it also acts as a spice inasmuch as it can provide an aromatic undertone to various meat and vegetable dishes, without being a major ingredient. The characteristic appearance is well known, but there are many variations of colour, shape and size.
Ladies finger is a very popular vegetable grown in India. Commonly known as Bhindi, it thrives well in summer. The flowers of the plant are extremely beautiful and brighten the garden when in full bloom. One main reason why many farmers prefer growing okra is that the plant needs very little maintenance and when one pod is harvested another one grows in its place.
Coccinia grandis, the ivy gourd, also referred to as baby watermelon, little gourd, gentleman’s toes or even gherkin is actually an exotic vine belonging to the family Cucurbitaceae, in the genus Coccinia Wight & Arn. Other Common Names of Ivy includes Kowai fruit, Small Gourd, Scarlet-Fruited Gourd, Scarlet Gourd, Kovakka, little gourd, tonde Kai, Cephalandra indica, and Tindora.
Chillies are the life and soul of a hearty Indian meal. You don’t necessarily have to overdo it until smoke comes out of your ears, but without a touch of chilli, dishes seem incomplete. We can’t think of Indian cooking without a dash of green chillies. Slit, sliced, chopped or diced, we just have to add a few green chillies to add that tang to our food. A green chilli is an important star in Indian cooking. This spice is grown throughout the year and so there is no scarcity and a good quantity is exported. Chillies are used with or without stalks. Green chillies are available fresh, dried, powdered, flaked, in oil, in sauce, bottled and pickled. It spices up a bland meal.
Gooseberries are deciduous shrubs, fast growing under optimum conditions to 3 feet tall and 6 feet wide. The plant is suitable for training as a standard. American types have weeping stems that will root wherever they touch the ground and can be invasive. Annual growth is in a single flush in spring. The roots are superficial, fine and easily damaged by frequent cultivation.
The drumstick is an extremely well-known veggie, cultivated in several regions of India. It’s got excellent therapeutic values and high nutrition content. The drumstick is popular, mostly because of its gentle and sensitive pods. It’s got numerous extraordinary benefits, like being an anti-bacterial and detoxifier.
Carrot, (Daucus carota), herbaceous, generally biennial plant of the Apiaceae family that produces an edible taproot. Among common varieties root shapes range from globular to long, with lower ends blunt to pointed. Besides the orange-coloured roots, white-, yellow-, and purple-fleshed varieties are known.
Bitter melon (Momordica charantia ) is a tropical plant that grows in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. It is also known as balsam pear. This annual of the Cucurbitaceae family is a thin, climbing vine with long, stalked leaves that flowers in July or August. The plant bears a long, cucumber-shaped fruit that hangs like a pendulum, with small bumps all over it.
Beta vulgaris, the beet or beetroot, is an annual or biennial herbaceous plant in the Amaranthaceae, the amaranth family (formerly placed in Chenopodiaceae, the goosefoot or spinach family), which originated in southern Europe and western Asia, and has been developed into three distinct varieties specialized for different edible parts of the plant:
Asafoetida powder is often described as pungent and “funky,” at least until it hits hot oil. In fact, alternate common names for this herb include devil’s sweat, devil’s dung and various other descriptive terms. But if you’ve ever visited an Indian restaurant and wondered what that unique aroma was lingering in the air, it was asafoetida. The spice provides the unmistakable characteristic flavor to tarkas, the spiced finishing sauces common to Indian cuisine
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Red bananas should have a deep red or maroon rind when ripe, and are best eaten when unbruised and slightly soft. This variety contains more beta carotene and vitamin C than yellow banana. It also contains potassium and iron. The redder the fruit, the more carotene and the higher the vitamin C level. As with yellow bananas, red bananas will ripen in a few days at room temperature and are best stored outside refrigeration
The pomegranate is a neat, rounded shrub or small tree that can grow to 20 or 30 ft., but more typically to 12 to 16 ft. in height. Dwarf varieties are also known. It is usually deciduous, but in certain areas the leaves will persist on the tree. The trunk is covered by a red-brown bark which later becomes gray. The branches are stiff, angular and often spiny. There is a strong tendency to sucker from the base. Pomegranates are also long-lived. There are specimens in Europe that are known to be over 200 years of age. The vigor of a pomegranate declines after about 15 years, however.
Papaya is a short-lived perennial growing to 30 ft (9.14 m) high. Its hollow, herbaceous stem is usually unbranched. The deeply lobed, palmate leaves are borne on long, hollow petioles emerging from the stem apex. Flowers occur in leaf axils. Older leaves die and fall as the tree grows.
The orange fruit is one of the most widely consumed fruits in the Unites States. It is a member of the citrus family along with lemons, limes and grapefruit. Oranges are most often covered in a thick, orangey-yellow skin, and the inside is divided into segments of juicy pulp. Oranges are typically eaten by peeling the skin and consuming only the juice and pulp inside. Some individuals though enjoy the peel as well. A popular method of making the peel palatable is to dip the thick skin into melted chocolate which produces a sweet and nutritious candy treat.
Mango, (Mangifera indica), member of the cashew family (Anacardiaceae) and one of the most important and widely cultivated fruits of the tropical world. The mango tree is considered indigenous to eastern Asia, Myanmar (Burma), and Assam state of India. Mangoes are a rich source of vitamins A, C, and D.
Guavas are primarily self-fruitful, although some strains seem to produce more fruit when cross-pollinated with another variety. Guavas can bloom throughout the year in mild-winter areas, but the heaviest bloom occurs with the onset of warm weather in the spring. The exact time can vary from year to year depending on weather. The chief pollinator of guavas is the honeybee.
Cherries may be either deliciously sweet and deep brown-red, or quite tart and bright red. The two most common are the sweet cherry, Prunus avium L., and the sour (often referred to by growers as the pie or tart) cherry Prunus cerasus L.. Sour cherries have a lower sugar content and a higher acid content than its sweet counterpart. Not surprisingly, sour cherries are slightly less caloric than sweet cherries, containing about 60 calories per 3.5 oz (100 g) portion compared to 80 calories for sweet.
Jamun or Black plum is an important summer fruit, associated with many health and medicinal benefits. The black plum is known to relieve stomach pain, carminative, anti-scorbutic and diuretic. Black Plum vinegar is good to reduce enlargement of spleen, diarrhoea, and those have urine retention problems. Jamum’s ployphenolic compounds are effective against cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, asthma and arthritis.
he banana inflorescence shooting out from the heart in the tip of the stem, is at first a large, long-oval, tapering, purple-clad bud. As it opens, the slim, nectar-rich, tubular, toothed, white flowers appear. They are clustered in whorled double rows along the the floral stalk, each cluster covered by a thick, waxy, hood like bract, purple outside and deep red within. The flowers occupying the first 5 – 15 rows are female. As the rachis of the inflorescence continues to elongate, sterile flowers with abortive male and female parts appear, followed by normal staminate ones with abortive ovaries. The two latter flower types eventually drop in most edible bananas.
Apple, (Malus domestica), fruit of the domesticated tree Malus domestica (family Rosaceae), one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits. The apple is a pome (fleshy) fruit, in which the ripened ovary and surrounding tissue both become fleshy and edible. The apple flower of most varieties requires cross-pollination for fertilization.
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