Garden Crops

Adzuki Bean is a small-seeded annual legume native to East Asia, grown through a single warm season for its compact pods of tiny, often deep-red beans.

African Marigold is a warm-season flowering annual grown for its large, showy blooms in shades of yellow, orange and maroon, popular in garden beds and as a long-lasting cut flower.

African Oil Palm is a tall, single-stemmed tropical palm grown chiefly for the oil pressed from its fruit and kernels, now cultivated widely across West Africa, Southeast Asia, and other tropical regions.

Almond is a small deciduous tree grown for its edible kernel, cultivated widely in Mediterranean-type climates for food, oil and its early spring ornamental blossom.

American Oil Palm is a slow-growing palm native to Central and South America, valued for its oil-rich fruit and as breeding stock for hardier oil palm hybrids.

Anise is an annual herb of the parsley family grown for its aromatic, licorice-scented seeds and leaves, long valued as a flavoring in cooking, baking, and spirits across the Mediterranean world.

Apple is a deciduous fruit tree grown worldwide for its crisp, edible pomes, prized as both a garden fruit tree and a flowering ornamental.

Arabica Coffee is a tropical evergreen shrub whose ripened fruits yield the seeds processed into the world's most widely traded coffee bean, grown across highland tropics from Latin America to Southeast Asia.

Areca Palm is a palm native to the Philippines, grown across South and Southeast Asia chiefly for its seed, the areca nut, long carried into cultivation through human migration and trade.

Artichoke is a Mediterranean perennial thistle grown for its immature flower buds, which are harvested and eaten as a vegetable before they open into a coarse, inedible flower head.

Asparagus is a long-lived perennial vegetable grown for its edible young spears, prized as one of the first fresh crops of spring after a bed matures over several patient years.

Avocado is a broadleaf evergreen tree native to Mesoamerica, prized for its large, oily, single-seeded fruit eaten fresh, made into guacamole, or pressed for its seed and pulp oils.

Baby Rubber Plant is a compact, glossy-leaved evergreen perennial from tropical America, grown chiefly as a low-maintenance houseplant and shady groundcover for its thick, water-storing foliage rather than its inconspicuous flowers.

Banana is a fast-growing tropical herbaceous perennial grown chiefly for its elongated, starchy-to-sweet fruit, though some types are valued mainly for their large ornamental foliage rather than for eating.

Baobab is a long-lived, deciduous African tree grown for its edible fruit pulp, leaves and seeds and for its fibrous bark, thriving in hot, semi-arid savanna climates.

Barley is a cool-season cereal grass, one of the world's oldest cultivated grains, grown across temperate regions for its grain, malt, forage, and soil-building qualities.

Bay Laurel is an evergreen Mediterranean shrub or tree grown chiefly for its aromatic leaves, valued both as a culinary herb and as a hardy, slow-growing ornamental for containers, hedges and topiary.

Beet is a cool-season root vegetable grown for its swollen taproot and edible leafy tops, prized for an earthy sweetness that carries from the garden into the kitchen.

Bell Pepper is a sweet, non-pungent form of Capsicum annuum grown as a warm-season crop for its blocky, colorful fruit, valued fresh or cooked in kitchens and gardens worldwide.

Bitter Melon is a fast-growing tropical vine cultivated across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean for its warty, sharply bitter fruit, prized as a vegetable despite the pungent odor that greets many first-time growers.

Bittersweet Nightshade is a woody-based, climbing perennial vine of the nightshade family, native to Eurasia and grown mainly as an ornamental, though every part of the plant is toxic to humans and most animals.

Black Mustard is a fast-growing annual grown for its pungent seeds, leaves and stems, prized as a spice crop and cooked green rather than for any single named form.

Black Pepper is a perennial climbing vine grown for its dried fruit, the peppercorn, which has been used since antiquity as one of the world's most widely traded spices.

Black Walnut is a large, long-lived deciduous nut tree native to eastern North America, grown both for its edible nuts and for its richly colored, highly valued timber.

Blackberry is a thorny, perennial bramble grown chiefly for its dark, edible aggregate fruit, prized in home gardens both for fresh eating and preserving and for its vigorous, wildlife-supporting growth habit.

Blue agave is a spiky-leaved succulent from Mexico's Jalisco highlands, grown chiefly for the sugar-rich heart that is roasted, fermented and distilled into tequila.

Bok choy is a fast-growing Asian leafy vegetable in the cabbage family, valued for its crisp white petioles and glossy green leaves that make it as much a kitchen staple as a garden ornamental.

Bottle Gourd is a vigorous annual vine in the cucumber family, grown for a hard-shelled fruit that serves both as a young cooked vegetable and, once dried, as a durable container or ornamental object.

Bread Wheat is an annual cereal grass cultivated worldwide as the staple grain crop underlying most baking and cooking, and in home gardens it is often grown simply as a fall-sown winter cover crop.

Broccoli is a cool-season vegetable grown for its immature flower buds, a relatively recent selection from the wild cabbage lineage that also gave rise to kale, cabbage, and cauliflower.