Cucumbers Prepared Five Ways

Cucumbers and More Cucumbers

As many gardeners have come to learn, one cucumber plant can go a long way. Are you harvesting a lot of cucumbers from your garden this time of year? Maybe you are getting a bunch in your weekly CSA box. If you are looking for more creative ways to use cucumbers than just slicing them into a… Continue reading

The Kitchen Garden A to Z: Cabbage

Cabbage

I’m working through my kitchen garden from A to Z. Here’s my guide to growing, harvesting, cooking, and preserving cabbage.

Cabbage

When it comes to cruciferous vegetables, cabbage is king. Cabbage plants produce huge, showy heads that hold their own amongst ornamentals. Cousin to kale, broccoli, cauliflower, the cabbage has… Continue reading

The May Garden

May garden
“The world’s favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May.”
The quote above from American naturalist and writer Edwin Way Teale pretty much sums up my thoughts about the garden in May. In the May garden, anything seems possible.

The May garden is pure enjoyment. The hard work of prepping the soil and planting the… Continue reading

Peppers: Eight Cultivars to Grow in Your Garden

Peppers: Eight cultivars to grow in your garden

Starting pepper seeds indoors has to be my favorite gardening task.

There’s something about planting pepper seeds inside when it’s too cold to be in the garden. It somehow reassures me that warmer days are ahead. I get daydreaming about all the colorful fruit the plants will bear to… Continue reading

My Kitchen Garden in October

Garden in October

There may be no more beautiful month in Iowa than October.

Just take a look at my backyard. The woods became a palette of purple, yellow and rust in the last few weeks, even as the vegetables of summer continued to produce blooms in the garden. Frost remained at bay until the early hours of October 17… Continue reading