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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

 Purple beans and carrots may cause some reaction from picky family eaters. No matter what their reaction, it will be worth your while to convince them to eat their organic purple veggies.Start "painting" under the soil first with radishes, beetroot and purple-topped suedes....

Purple vegetables are delicious as well as healthful. Although many of them fade when cooked (the purple snap beans fade to a more conventional green). Purple vegetables taste the same as their more normally coloured counterparts. All you have to do is keep an open mind and possibly explain to some folks that yes, green beans can be purple! Plant a patch of healthful purple plants...

According to the Texas A&M University department of horticulture, "purple onions and cabbage have all the benefits of white onions and green cabbage but also a little added benefit of another phytochemical that acts as an antioxidant and can also improve memory. This phytochemical is what gives the purple colour!" For the curious, these phytochemicals include anthocyanins and phenolics.

Start "painting" under the soil first with radishes, beetroot and purple-topped suedes. At ground level grow rhubarb, basil, cabbage, lettuce and flowering chives.
Arching overhead you will have bamboo tripods covered with fat, drooping purple beans and deeply-hued eggplants. A background wall covered in a creeper like morning glory or passionfruit will set off the section.

Some varieties of these normally purple vegetables that are suited to organic growing are Pingtung Long Eggplant (a long, narrow slicing type eggplant), Purplette Summer Onions and Super Red 80 Cabbage, a variety that is great for planting at close spacing to make single serving sized cabbages.

If you are looking for some beautiful surprises in your garden, there is a long list of purple vegetable varieties. These include artichoke, basil, carrots, garlic, leafy vegetables (usually referred to as greens ), potatoes, turnips, radishes, string beans, kohl rabi, rhubarb, lettuce, swedes, beetroots and cauliflower.

It is up to you then to decide how to weave in or seperate your purple plants from green foliage and other shades in your garden.

Here are a few varieties we suggest to start, for your organic garden....

Artichoke, Climbing beans - dark purple beans and foliage and beans turn deep green when cooked, Basil, Beetroot (beet toops are nice cooked as spinach. Pick when still young). Cabbage, Cauliflower, Eggplants (aubergines), Kohl rabi (turnip-rooted vegetable) where both top and root can be cooked and eaten. Lettuce - Migonette Red (a reddish purple-tinged butterhead variety). Radish, Rhubarb, Swede (purple top) and Turnip.

Winter

Basil-Red Ruben

Cauliflower-Graffiti

Bush Bean-Royal Burgundy

Onion-Purplette

Summer

Beet-Bull's Blood

Mustard Green-Red Giant

Carrot-Cosmic Purple

Potato-All Blue

Eggplant-Pingtung Long

Tomato-Pruden's Purple

Garlic-Russian Red

Turnip-Purple Top

Radish-Plum Purple

You have probably thought of some varieties we have overlooked. From this list you could easily get the impression that all growing things are purple.

Personally - Lynette Stein CEO Ecobites - Fond childhood memories of my beautiful Grandma Stein growing a rainbow garden with beautiful shades of her favourite colour - purple. The old-time clothesline that went down the length of the yard with the herb garden planted underneath. What a spectacular site when the lavender was in full bloom - we would lay the pillowcases to dry on top and it was just magical to sleep with the smell of lavender.