Growing black vegetables is an excellent way to make your garden stand out.
As well as being high in nutrients, these dark colored vegetables will easily impress your friends and family.
Here are 10 gorgeous black vegetables to plant in your garden.
Some of these vegetables will lose their color when they’re cooked but most of them can be eaten raw in salads to preserve their beautiful dark color.
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Black vegetables – A nutritional powerhouse
As well as looking beautiful in the garden, black vegetables are high in anthocyanins, which are colored pigments that help to protect the plants from harsh weather conditions.
When you eat black vegetables, the anthocyanins act as antioxidants that help to neutralize free radicals in your body.
Anthocyanins are also found in other foods like cherries, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, red grapes and red wine. [1]
10 BLACK VEGETABLE VARIETIES
1. Tomatoes
Black Beauty
As well as looking good, they’re also packed with nutrients.
Try growing these beautiful dark colored tomatoes to add color and interest to your meals.
2. Cherry tomatoes
Another type of black tomato to plant in your garden is black cherry tomatoes
The plants produce large clusters of small, round, deep purple / black fruits with a delicious flavor.
They’re fast growing and ready to harvest in about 2 months after planting.
3. Carrots
Black Nebula
They have similar growing requirements to regular orange carrots and they do best when the seeds are planted directly in the veggie garden.
Black Nebula carrots keep their color fairly well when cooked. You can also grate or finely slice them to add to salads or use them to make a stunning black vegetable juice.
4. Corn
Corn is an easy vegetable plant to grow and there are some beautiful black varieties available.
Try planting heirloom black corn
Most varieties of corn grow to about 6 feet (1.8 m) tall but some can reach as high as 8 feet (2.4 m) tall.
5. Radishes
Black radishes
They’re spicy and hot, so they’re great for adding flavor to salads or you can eat them straight from the garden as a snack.
Radishes grow fast and you’ll be able to harvest your crop of black radishes in 4 to 5 weeks after planting.
6. Eggplant
Eggplants, also known as Aubergines, are beautiful vegetable plants that come in a range of colors including black, dark purple and light purple.
Black eggplants
Leave the skin on when you’re cooking eggplants to get the benefits of the anthocyanins in the skin.
Try alternating white eggplants and black eggplants in the garden for an interesting effect.
7. Peppers
Black peppers
They grow best in warm temperatures and prefer a position in full sun.
8. Pumpkin
Black pumpkins
They grow best in full sun and take about 100 days to mature.
9. Zucchini
Zucchini, also known as Courgette, is a type of summer squash that is best harvested when it’s still young and tender at about 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 cm).
Black Beauty
10. Beans
There are many different types of black beans to plant in your garden including black soy beans
So there are 10 beautiful black vegetables to plant in your vegetable garden.
Planting a few of these dark colored varieties will make your meals more interesting and nutritious.
Your garden will also be the envy of everyone that visits your backyard.
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Have you tried growing any of these black vegetables in your garden? Let me know in the comments below.
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Very good article. It’s inspired me to plant some black vegetables in my small vegetable garden at home.
I love the look of black cherry tomatoes and eggplants. Definitely on my list of vegetables to grow!
I had no idea that there were so many black vegetables that you could grow, but now I’m intrigued! In particular, I really want to give black tomatoes or black cherry tomatoes a go. Not only do they look really cool, we love tomatoes in our house and always make a point of planting multiple tomato plants each year already!
If you asked me to name 2 black vegetables before reading this post, I would only be able to come up with eggplant! I had no idea there are all these varieties of black vegetables—such gifts of nature.
I had no idea that tomatoes could be black! I’ll have to give that a try because I want to taste them. I’m a huge fan of black/purple carrots. There are several colors of carrots that my husband and I buy in a bundle, black/purple, orange, white, and yellow. They are soooooo good roasted in the oven. The black ones (I’ve always called them purple) especially take on a warm and sweet taste when roasted in the oven. Kind of reminds me of a sweet potato, but they are delicious.
Black is beautiful is what I felt looking at these vegetables. While I have seen few of them in black before it’s the first time I am seeing black corn, carrots and tomatoes. I wish I could grow all of them.
Black corn is on my list to grow this spring. I have always wondered what it tastes like.