Kitchen Garden
Gardening, Farming, Cooking, Recipes, Local Food, Everything that goes into meal production.
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Sunday morning I picked green beans because they were ready. About 20 minutes into the task I was drenched in sweat. With a forecast high of 89 degrees it became clear it would be another indoors day. Once again, I escaped into my two favorite spots in the house: my writing table and the kitchen.… Read more
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Saturday cooking is one of the great pleasures of life. I use it to set aside worries and concentrate on preserving and making food for our family with an emphasis on taste and using the garden abundance. Rain was forecast all morning so I spent Saturday in the kitchen. This post is a slice of… Read more
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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. One measure of abundance is Zestar! apples. It was the… Read more
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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… Read more
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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… Read more
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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… Read more
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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… Read more
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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. I’ve been able to exercise daily with a… Read more
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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… Read more
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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… Read more
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