Unusually Colored Vegetables for Garden and Kitchen

There is certainly nothing ugly about vegetable plants, but most people really don't see them as ornamental. Most are basic green; even the ones that ripen to a bright color, like tomatoes, are taken for granted when planning how a garden looks. The vegetable plants get relegated to an out of the way spot where they don't have to be seen until they are wanted. But vegetables can be interesting plants that add color to the garden and to the dinner plate. There are good reasons for doing this, too: if the vegetables are in plain sight, you're more apt to pick and eat them; kids seem attracted to the unusually colored veggies; and science is finding that the colorful pigments contain a lot of antioxidants that can protect us from disease.

The leafy vegetables offer the variety in colors. Lettuce not only comes in many shades of green, but also in bronze and dark red. There are many loose leaf varieties with leaves that are part green and part reddish bronze, like 'Red Sails' or 'Red Fire'. The leaf base is green while the top part of the leaf that gets full sun turns dark. There is a bronze romaine called 'Cimmaron' that is a very old variety- it was grown back in the 18^th century. It's very pretty, although it never gets very dark. I usually intersperse it with regular green romaine and 'Freckles', which is a green romaine with burgundy spots and blotches. 'Freckles' is not only attractive, but it's one of the best flavored and holds for a long time before it bolts. But the very best lettuce for color is 'Galactic'. This plant is dark, dark burgundy all the way down to the base of the leaves. The leaf edges are wavy and curly and it resists bolting for a long time. I used this lettuce as an ornamental in containers this year and was very impressed. Next year I'm going to use it as an edging plant.