ROYAL FLUSH

An antioxidant that protects the plant from environmental stressors—and provides health benefits to those who eat them.

Purple vegetables are jewels of the edible garden. I’ve been gardening for more than 40 years, but I still show off my magenta cauliflower or deep purple peas. These vibrant vegetables take center stage in the garden, and their brilliant color adds a “wow” factor in the kitchen, along with a powerful nutritional punch. If you’ve never grown purple vegetables, now is the time to try them.

While binge watching too many history programs last year, I learned that for centuries purple was the exclusive color of royalty. Some emperors of Rome, as well as Queen Elizabeth I, forbade those outside of the royal circle to wear this extraordinarily expensive dye, made with ground-up mollusks from the Mediterranean Sea. How anyone discovered that powdered mollusks could