Kitchen Garden – The Gardener Wife

Celery Increase: Using, Storing, and Preserving Celery

Growing celery increases my salary! Here’s how to use and store it.

Tips for Using Rain Barrels

I’ve been using rain barrels for over ten years now, and here are the tips that I’ve learned.

White Chicken Chili

—perfect for seasonal eating now as I’m harvesting tomatillos and still have fresh bell peppers, jalapenos, and onion from the garden.

Tour of My Gardens

The best part of the garden walk was seeing and talking to my newsletter readers, social media followers, and garden club friends.

SPECIAL OFFER for National Gardening Day

Today, April 14, 2021, is National Gardening Day, and I’m celebrating it with a special offer. Subscribe to my newsletter now and get access to a video of my presentation on how to start a garden. Details are HERE. Do you know anyone who wants to start growing their own food?Share the link with them!ActContinue reading “SPECIAL OFFER for National Gardening Day”

Pumpkin Eggplant Riddle

Q: What looks like a tiny pumpkin but is really an eggplant? A: ‘Goyo Kumba’ Solanum aethiopicum The orange fruit in my hand is not a tiny pumpkin: it’s a tiny eggplant! I came across the seeds for this unusual vegetable, Goyo Kumba eggplant, several years ago, and I had to try it. If nothingContinue reading “Pumpkin Eggplant Riddle”

It Beets Me! – Making Borscht

It’s National Homemade Soup Day—plus Valentines Day is coming up—so I’m posting my Ukrainian family’s recipe for borscht, a beautiful red soup. I first shared this recipe with my newsletter readers a couple of years ago in mid-November. In the course of putting my kitchen garden to bed that fall, I had finally harvested theContinue reading “It Beets Me! – Making Borscht”

Watering Tips

When we don’t get enough rain to keep the garden producing goodies for my table, I have to water it. Here are some general watering tips for gardens. Water from below. Never spray water onto the foliage or flowers. Remember that the roots need the water, not the leaves. Here in the humid Midwest many plants are susceptibleContinue reading “Watering Tips”