What You Should Know About Selected Vegetables and Herbs: A Guide for Cultivation in California

The following notes and tips on selected vegetables and herbs have been developed to provide an easy-to-use, alphabetical Guide that summarizes a wide range of information concerning their culture, harvest, storage, common problems (pests and diseases), and their nutritional value. The Guide is not intended to be a comprehensive reference source, and you will need to consult other vegetable gardening materials to obtain detailed information, which is readily available to the interested home gardener. The Guide includes the following features:

	Table 2 - Vegetable Gardening at a Glance: How to Plant and Store
	Table 3 - Family Relationships
	Table 4 - Approximate Yield for Selected Vegetable Crops
	Table 5 - General Problem Diagnosis for Vegetables
	Table 6 - Disease Resistance Key
Nutritional Value of Vegetables
	Table 7 - Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) and U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances (U.S.RDA)
	Table 8 - Estimated Sodium, Chloride, and Potassium Minimum Requirements of Healthy Persons and Estimated Safe and Adequate Daily Dietary Intakes of Selected Vitamins and Minerals

Table 2 - Vegetable Gardening at a Glance: How to Plant and Store

The table gives recommended planting dates for various locations in California, a summary of planting requirements, and advice about storage conditions. It also lists a suggested amount to raise for a family of four, the proper temperature for storage of harvested produce, recommendations on the length of time to store, and how to preserve. Cooperative Extension publications on food preservation are also useful resources.

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Table 3 - Family Relationship

Listed in Table 3 are the Top Ten Families of Vegetable Crops Grown in Home Gardens and their scientific names. Note that relatively few plant families are sources of the typical vegetables consumed. As you study the Guide you will note that similar pests and diseases attack plant families. For example, the "cucurbit family" (squash, cucumber, pumpkin, cantaloupe, and watermelon) and the "cole family" (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts) are each attacked by similar pests and diseases.

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Table 4 - Approximate Yield for Selected Vegetable Crops

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Table 5 - General Problem Diagnosis for Vegetables

Table 5 lists general problems and symptoms typical of many vegetables grown in home gardens in California.

For each vegetable crop, the Guide offers crop-specific problem diagnosis information that includes a list of the most common diseases, insect pests, and cultural problems that home gardeners can experience. Also included are more detailed comments about fruit set problems in squash, melons, tomatoes, and cucumbers in home gardens; fruit drop problems, solar yellowing, and leaf roll disorder in tomatoes; premature heading in cauliflower, bitterness in cucumbers; and environmental factors that cause problems in cultivating radishes. Comprehensive information about cultivating vegetables and managing pests, weeds, diseases, insects, mites, snails, slugs, and nematodes in California is available in Pests of the Garden and Small Farm: A Grower's Guide to Using Less Pesticide, University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Publication 3332, which is recommended as an essential resource and reference book for Master Gardeners. For more specific advice about pest and disease control, contact your University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor. In most cases the Guide in this Handbook should provide enough know-how to get a crop from seed to harvest.

Crop Varieties
For most vegetables, there are a number of varieties from which to choose. The crop varieties recommended in the Guide possess attributes important to success in the home garden, including wide availability, adaptability to a range of microclimates, consistency of high quality yields, and resistance to disease. Where several varieties are listed for a crop, you may want to grow more than one to determine which- is best suited to your individual taste. If you are uncertain about which variety to plant, choose a variety designated "ASS" These All-America Selections perform well throughout most of the United States, and many are resistant to disease.

Whether purchasing seeds or transplants, always note the specific crop variety. Avoid generic or unlabeled transplants, since characteristics can vary widely with different varieties of the same crop.

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Table 6 - Disease Resistance Key

Table 6 lists the acronyms used in the Guide for the pest, virus, or disease to which the recommended varieties are resistant.

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Table 7

• Table 7a - Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA)

• Table 7b - U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances (U.S.RDA)

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Table 8

• Estimated Sodium, Chloride, and Potassium Minimum Requirements of Healthy Persons

• Estimated Safe and Adequate Daily Dietary Intakes of Selected Vitamins and Minerals

Nutritional value is summarized for each vegetable discussed in the Guide. Many vegetables are very low in fat, sodium, and calories. In addition, they are good sources of vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C, vitamin A, folic acid, potassium, iron, and magnesium. Since vegetables are plant-based foods, they do not contain any cholesterol. The Guide lists the nutritional value of typical serving sizes for each vegetable, based on data extracted from the sixteenth edition of Bowes & Church's Food Values of Portions Commonly Used (1994), revised by Jean Pennington, Ph.D., R.D.

The vitamin and mineral content of vegetables listed here and in other publications are averages because the exact amounts will vary depending on the variety of the crop, the soil in which it was grown, geography, season, the crop's maturity, the storage conditions, how long it was stored after harvest, how it was prepared or processed for consumption (raw or cooked), sampling techniques, and the method of nutrient analysis. As a home gardener, you will have more control regarding nutrient losses than the average consumer, if you follow the recommendations in the Guide for harvesting and storage and prepare your vegetables with nutrient conservation in mind. Vitamin C content is usually reduced as storage time increases due to oxidation. Many B vitamins are water-soluble and can be lost when cooking water is excessive.

The "%RDA" term in the Guide refers to the percentage of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals that the particular serving size of the vegetable contains. The RDAs are designed for the maintenance of good nutrition of practically all healthy persons in the United States. The RDA established for each vitamin and mineral is based on the recommendations of the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council. RDAs have been prepared by the Food and Nutrition Board since 1941. The most recent version of the RDA (10th edition) was published in 1989 and is presented in Table 7, part I. The %RDA listed in the Guide for each vegetable is based on the current RDA for adult men and women ages 25 - 50 years, as stated in Table 7, Part I.

".RDAs are intended to reflect the best scientific judgment on nutrient allowances for the maintenance of good health and to serve as the basis for evaluating the adequacy of diets of groups of people . The RDAs provide a safety factor appropriate to each nutrient and exceed the actual requirements of most individuals. The RDA for energy [caloric needs], however, reflects the mean population requirement for each group, since consumption of energy at a level intended to cover the variation in energy needs among individuals could lead to obesity in most persons."

"For many nutrients, digestion, absorption, or both are incomplete and recommendations for dietary intake must make allowance for the portion of the ingested nutrient that is not absorbed.the degree to which the RDA, a dietary allowance, exceeds the physiological requirement also varies among nutrients." (Recommended Dietary Allowances, 10th edition, p. 1 - 13).

Sometimes the RDAs are confused with the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances (U.S.RDA) which were developed by the Food and Drug Administration in 1973 for nutritional labeling of foods. The U.S.RDAs are listed in Table 7, Part II. The U.S.RDAs are derived from an earlier edition (the 1968 edition) of the RDAS. Until recently, food labels on many products in the grocery store listed the %U.S.RDA. Nutritional labeling changed recently and food labels now list the "percent Daily Value" (%DV), which is based on a 2,000 calorie diet that may or may not meet your caloric requirements.

A few terms may need some explanation so that you can use Table 7 and the nutritional value information in the Guide.

RDA Requirements. In the Guide, the nutritional value of nutrients contained in the specific serving size of each vegetable is expressed as %RDA(m) and %RDA(f) to denote the percentage of the Recommended Dietary Allowances for males (m) and females (f). The percentages are based on the RDAs for men and women ages 25 - 50 that are listed in Table 7 Part I.

Potassium. No RDA has been established for potassium, but a minimum requirement for healthy persons is based on age. See Table 8, Part I. The requirement for males and females is identical. The nutritional value information in the Guide for the potassium content of each vegetable is expressed as % Nfin. Requirement.

Retinol Equivalents (RE). Some forms of vitamin A are not absorbed very efficiently; even though they are consumed in a particular food, the vitamin A they contain may not be bioavailable. Retinol is a fatsoluble form of vitamin A that is required for new cell growth and prevention of night blindness. 0-carotene is a vitamin A precursor that the body converts to vitamin A. The vitamin A activity in foods and in the vegetables listed in the Guide is expressed as micrograms (ug) retinol equivalents (RE). The RDA for men and women ages 25 to 50 is 1000 RE and 800 RE, respectively. The notes to Table 7, Part 1 state:

1 retinol equivalent (RE) = 1 ug retinol - 6 ug all-trans b-carotene

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