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"Growing veggies is fun, cheap, and worth it. Having a garden doesn't just mean you can grab free and fresh meals from the dirt out back. It means you've create a relationship with the earth. You noticed what type of soil and fertilizer to use. What vegetables are in season and how often they need sun and water. Today's infographic is really the best guide for growing veggies out there. Follow this advice and you will be cookin' up your own gumbo in no time."

Agriculture giant Monsanto may be best known for genetic modification-like creating corn that resists the effects of Monsanto's weed killer Roundup. But when it comes to fruits and vegetables you buy in the store, genetic modification is off the menu. Monsanto thinks no one will buy Frankenfoods, so the company is tweaking its efforts-continuing to map the genetic basis of a plant's desirable traits but using that data to breed new custom-designed strains the way agronomists have for millennia. Here's how it works-and how the results differ from GMO crops. Thanks to this cross between high and low tech, a new era of super-produce may be upon us. -Victoria Tang

One of the world's most complex experiments on the impact of rising levels of carbon dioxide is taking shape in eastern Australia, where giant steel frames nine stories high have been built on native woodland.  The project near Sydney will mimic future climatic conditions by simulating higher atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is pumped into an environmental "time machine" on the outskirts of Sydney, aiming to predict how vegetation will react to future climate change.

"When I was little, my mom made everything fresh. We picked fruits in the summer, and she grew so many of her own vegetables. I knew, secondhand, that pasta sauce also came out of a jar, but I had no idea why you'd want to eat it. When I was about nine, I insisted that I wanted to eat Chef Boyardee Spaghetti-Os because my friends always got to eat them. I longed for this particular forbidden fruit, without really having any reason to want it besides the fact that other kids got to eat it. Eventually, my mother agreed, but I couldn't even manage to choke down the Spaghetti-Os I had longed for - I thought they were so gross! The handy infographic below takes a look at how important it is to educate kids about food choices and eating healthy. So many kids don't know that real food doesn't come out of a box. Keep reading to learn more."

"In the American West, wildfires are essential for keeping forests healthy. But the same fires that help release nutrients and promote new plant growth can also wipe out thousands of acres of forest and cause millions of dollars in damage. Since the 1970s, wildfires have been on the rise and some of this is due to a warming planet. But increased wildfires because of hot climate is not the whole story. Here we look at the way climate can affect vegetation in the West, and what influence this has on wildfires. Drought and rainfall can have very different wildfire outcomes depending on where you look in the West."

The results of the government's first reverse auction of carbon-cutting projects have been released. Where is the money going? The government will spend A$660 of its A$2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund on contracts set to reduce emissions by some 447 million tonnes, more than half of it in "carbon farming" projects to lock up carbon in vegetation. Federal environment minister Greg Hunt described the outcome as a "stunning result" for Australia, pointing out that the average price of A$13.95 per tonne of carbon is cheaper than the previous government's carbon pricing scheme. But critics have pointed to the lack of involvement so far from industry sectors that were covered by the previous carbon tax, and the fact that the new scheme is paid for by taxpayers rather than the businesses creating the pollution. Here are the numbers:"