Category: Kitchen Garden

Gardening, Farming, Cooking, Recipes, Local Food, Everything that goes into meal production.

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Kitchen Garden

Garden Gangbusters

Food pantry donation on July 18, 2025.

In July, we are in the thick of harvest season. There has been adequate rain, and growing conditions are almost ideal. 2025 will be one of my best gardening years ever. Among the benefits of a productive garden is frequent donations to area food pantries.

Zestar! apples July 21, 2025

One measure of abundance is Zestar! apples. It was the first large harvest from a tree I planted a few years ago. The taste is sensational: juicy and tart. They will make great applesauce. This year I decided to can applesauce in pint jars instead of quarts. One main use is as a binding agent in my Iowa vegan cornbread and the pint is more likely to be used up before it goes bad.

Use of apples goes way back on my father’s side of the family. Stories survive of family working in the apple canning plant in Appalachia in the early 20th Century. I am happy to have four varieties of apples growing in our back yard. Calling it my heritage is not wrong. I don’t spray, so they are not perfect. Boy howdy! Do I use them up!

Harvest on July 21, 2025.

When the garden is going gangbusters, the challenge is to use up or preserve as much as possible, as soon as possible. Two of the crates in the photo above have celery in them. Celery gets processed into four different things: I keep “hearts” of celery for cooking fresh, ending up with ten of them this year. The various outer stalks are separated from the leaves. The stalks with some size to them are chopped into small bits and frozen to add to soup. All the very small pieces of stalk and stem are roughly cut, bagged and frozen for use in making vegetable broth. Finally, the leaves are rough chopped, bagged and frozen to add to soup. I use the whole plant. All of this takes a bit of work, yet the flavor makes it worth the effort.

Another big project ahead is using garlic scapes before the garlic harvest. I have a good crop of basil, so I expect I will make garlic scape pesto. I already have plenty of half pint jars of pesto in the freezer, so I don’t need many more. Will see how far along with that I get.

Growing a large garden ties a person to home. There is so much to do in July, if we don’t pace ourselves, we may be tuckered out for the August tomato season. Can’t let that happen.

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Kitchen Garden

Eggplant Bloggery

Baked eggplant.

My intent was not to become a food blogger. Best intentions aside, I have written hundreds of posts about food — growing it, shopping for it, preparing and preserving it. I have a sense of keeping recipes and techniques on these pages, yet most of that information resides within me, or the little red book in which I write frequently used and locally developed recipes. I took the step of defining the term “kitchen garden.” What of all this food bloggery? I don’t know from where the urge to write about food came yet I persist.

When the garden produces eggplant, there is a lot of it. I picked half a dozen small to medium fruit and cut them into one half-inch slices. I diced the scraps into quarter-inch cubes and placed them in a freezer bag for later use. After brushing the slabs with extra virgin olive oil, and seasoning with salt, I baked them at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes, flipping them halfway. From here, I serve on a plate, spoon some pasta sauce to cover, and sprinkle on grated Parmesan cheese. Any leftover slices of eggplant get frozen for a quick, tasty future meal. Eggplants are a lesson in how to use abundance.

Food writing is a creative outlet. The photograph and text are products of a creative life which represents more than survival. We live in a culture that denigrates the different, that seeks to remove social differences the way politicians seek to erase transgender citizens. Food writing is a way to express a life that falls outside social norms. It is a safe harbor to consider how we might live differently. That seems true whether we write about family food traditions or about a simple eggplant supper served from an abundant garden. We need types of expression that assert our uniqueness without fear of repercussions, without persecution. Food writing can be that. Most readers seem unlikely to recognize it as such.

I meant to write about how four Galine Eggplant seedlings produced so much abundance. This post turned into more than that, about affirmation and the freedom to be different. While my brief recipe for an eggplant dish is not unique, this moment, with these words I became as unique as I might ever be. That has value in a society with low tolerance for anything that is different.

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Kitchen Garden

Toward Peak Summer

Wildflowers in the state park.

It looks to be a bountiful year in our kitchen garden. The refrigerator is jammed. I rearrange the freezer a couple of times each week to fit in more food. I make two or three donations to local community food pantries each week. It’s one of the reasons we garden.

There is a skill in shopping at the full-service grocery store. For the best fruit and vegetables, early Friday morning is when to shop. Between 6 and 7 a.m. on Fridays, there has been a good selection of organic fruit. Taste does matter. Freshness does matter, especially when buying from a large-scale grocer. By being aware of shelf-stocking procedures, one can shop when the best produce is available and in doing so, live better.

I’ve written about the flavor of home-grown celery. There is nothing like it. I harvested three bunches yesterday and processed them for use. It created three cores to be used fresh in cooking, three bags of celery leaves for seasoning soup, a bag of stalks chopped for soup, and a bag of bits and pieces to be used in making vegetable broth. I will use all of this.

Freshly Picked Celery

Cabbage heads are getting big, and the crop looks great. Conditions are right for cruciferous vegetables and the whole plot is doing well. Farao Cabbage is the variety doing the best this year. Cabbage keeps a long time in the refrigerator, yet if there’s no room left, some of it will go to the food pantry.

Cucumbers, squash and zucchini could slow down and I wouldn’t miss them. There has been too much to use. A crate of cucumbers will go to the food pantry this morning.

With abundant rain, everything is growing, including wildflowers in the state park. This has been a summer to remember. We currently are at its peak.

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Kitchen Garden

Summer Consumables

Photo by Mateusz Dach on Pexels.com

2025 is turning into an alcohol-free year. I didn’t even purchase my normal case of bottled beer for the summer. Some days, I don’t know who I am.

I drove across the lakes to the North Liberty Community Food Pantry and donated the day’s harvest of yellow squash and cucumbers. It was the third food bank donation this week. I like having an outlet when I grow too much of something. It enables me to pick the best produce for the kitchen yet find a home for all of it. Patrons of the food pantry truly need what donors provide.

On the way home I stopped at the convenience store to gamble $2 on the lottery. I noticed the display of many types of shots of liquor between the two cash registers and asked, 

"Do you sell a lot of these?"
"We do," replied the cashier.
"I imagine you sell a lot on Friday nights," I said. "Actually, mornings are the biggest sales. You'd be surprised how many people need a shot to start their work day."

I went to the orchard where I worked eight seasons and bought Michigan cherries. A family member grows them and they are some of the best I have ever tasted. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Also yes. It is a summer tradition worth continuing as long as I can afford it. In the sales display with the cherries they had bags of Lodi apples. This signifies the apple harvest has begun its long season continuing into late October.

The first crop of Zestar! apples will soon ripen in my garden. I picked one today and while the sugars are beginning to form, they are not yet ripe. It won’t be long, though, maybe a week or two.

The work of planting is mostly finished. From here, the work changes to weeding, harvesting, cooking, and leveraging other growers for what I don’t produce myself. It is all part of the circle of life when you grow food. I feel a part of something bigger than myself on days like this.

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Kitchen Garden

Last Year Meets This Year

Home made garlic basil spread.

The first harvest of basil was huge this year. I used part of it to make this pesto-like spread for toast and with pasta. A purist would say it is wanting in pine nuts and Parmesan cheese and therefore not pesto. In my world, there are not a lot of purists. These two jars went in the freezer while I use up previous year’s jars of pesto for lack of a better name.

Fresh basil pairs nicely with last year’s garlic crop, which needs to be used up before garlic scapes appear this year. Garlic, basil, extra virgin olive oil, and a little salt is all this needs. This batch used two and a half large head of garlic, and four cups of chopped basil. The measurements are flexible.

I made a batch of vegetable broth and this pesto while the ambient temperature outdoors was in the low 90s. It was a fine Saturday afternoon to work in the kitchen.

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Kitchen Garden

Last Day of Spring

Kale Harvest on June 17, 2025.

It’s been a good spring. The cruciferous vegetable patch has been coming along nicely. If it continues, there should be plenty of home grown kale and collards for the coming year until next year’s crop comes in. Hopefully everything else in that plot will mature for harvest.

Cruciferous vegetable plot.

I’ve been able to exercise daily with a brisk walk on the state park trail. I’m moderating what I eat using an app to track calories. I shed 15 pounds of weight this spring. I am eating better food in appropriate quantities. Between the exercise and change in eating habits, I feel better.

The trail goes on forever.

Today I plan to catch up on work around the house and make a trip to the wholesale club. Tomorrow I re-start summer writing. Here’s hoping for a memorable summer.

Don’t forget. Today is Juneteenth! Happy Juneteenth to all who celenrate. That should be every American.

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Kitchen Garden

2025 Garden is In

War Gardens

It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit when I finished putting in hot peppers yesterday. With that, the main garden planting is finished. Ahead is maintenance, weeding, and replanting: normal stuff, part of what makes gardening enjoyable.

The next major event is expected to be the appearance of garlic scapes. In the meanwhile, the leafy green vegetable plot has been producing an abundance. I enjoy my afternoon trips to the garden to pick greens for the kitchen.

The portable greenhouse will come down soon. The only things left are a tray of seedlings for the covered row (lettuce, Pak Choi, arugula, herbs), a tray of Milkweed starts, and an experiment in using old onions and leek seeds. It is best to take it down to reduce exposure to high winds in the neighborhood.

I have multiple days of tree maintenance next. The chainsaw service center is relocating due to the City of North Liberty wanting their land. My chainsaw was the next mechanical device to go into the shop, although I am not driving 45 minutes four times to take it there. I may see if Stihl has a reliable electric chainsaw. The home, farm , and auto supply store where I used to work is a Stihl dealer, and remains in the orbit of retailers I visit in person.

Low humidity makes the high temperatures tolerable. From here on out, I expect to spend early morning daylight in the garden and then move to other work. For those who have been following along, I expect to start a daily writing regimen when summer begins next week.

It feels good to have the garden in.

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Kitchen Garden

Spring Salad Time

Spring salad, June 7, 2025.

Someday I hope to visit Buffalo Ridge Orchard in Central City, which is near where my spouse’s family settled in Iowa after the Civil War. Their farm store is opening for the season today and this spring truism appeared in their newsletter, “This week we have all the makings for a wonderful salad and charcuterie board. We are well stocked with lettuce, radishes, salad turnips, Milton Creamery cheese, and Over the Moon salami.” While we don’t do charcuterie, the abundance of my garden overfills my salad bowl daily. Our grocer carries a good selection of organic vegetables like cauliflower and cucumbers to fill out the salad. We are living in the best times.

Back to work in the garden today. Hope you are finding local spring produce available where you live.

Editor’s Note: These short posts are intended to help readers follow along while most of my energy is diverted away from writing. Once the garden is in I’ll be back to normal posting.

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Kitchen Garden

Tomato Grid 2025

2025 rendering of the tomato plot. Total 71 cages this year.

Tomato seedlings were in the ground on Wednesday. Every one of them survived until Thursday. So far I don’t need to use the extras I held in reserve. They need mulching, although I didn’t have the energy for it. Once mulched, I’ll install a tall fence to keep deer from easy access.

I harvested a passel of leafy greens and spent a couple hours in the kitchen cleaning them. Arugula, three kinds of lettuce, Pak Choi, two kinds of kale, and collards. In my early gardening days I didn’t give much thought to greens. Now, after working eight years on a farm, I couldn’t live without them.

In other news, Thursday night I rejoined the county Democratic central committee. No one else will do the work, so I will until I find someone else.

Editor’s Note: I managed to post every day during garden planting season. Some, like this one, are brief. I’m still distracted from writing by the garden.

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Kitchen Garden

First Basket of Kale

Redbor and Winterbor kale from the 2025 garden.

The Tuesday forecast was for rain… all day. Before it began, I got out in the garden to measure tomato rows and inspect the leafy green vegetables. Little white moths have been busy laying eggs, so once the rain finishes, I’ll apply DiPel to take care of the coming caterpillar hatchlings that love greens as much as I do. Proper application of this naturally occurring pesticide makes a real difference. We need rain.

I picked the first basket of kale before the rain. I reviewed the freezer and there remains plenty of 2023 crop. I’ll take bags that have the largest number of ice crystals and use them in vegetable broth. There are plenty of other bits and pieces in the freezer — broccoli stalks, summer squash, and collards — that will all go into the pot. I bought a big bag of organic celery, seven pounds of organic carrots and a big bag of yellow onions at the wholesale club. Add bay leaves and a little salt and I’ll have a good spring batch of broth for water bath canning.

It looks like 70 tomato cages will fit, with enough space around them to get at them for harvest. Now it’s a question of when the rain will finish. It’s always something.

Editor’s Note: I’m still working with short posts until the garden is planted. Won’t be long.