We plant and some years the yield is a cup. This year, the yield is truly a bumper crop. After 15 years of growing garlic, this year’s garlic crop is the best ever. I’ve canned jar-after-jar of currant jelly. And we are overrun by potatoes. We are eating potatoes every single day; luckily, there are […]

Our field of garlic is ready to harvest, about a week early. Why am I digging garlic on the hottest day of the summer? Because the garlic said so. The leaves have yellowed and died. If the garlic stays in the ground, the heads will break apart in the dirt. Stop by Kitchen Conservatory to […]

Our field of garlic (1,200 heads) is about two weeks away from harvest. The stalks look thick and healthy. We are so impatient for this year’s crop that we dug one plant just to see how it looks…what a voluptuous beauty! Our freshly dug homegrown garlic will be available at Kitchen Conservatory for purchase on July […]

Yesterday, we dug and ate our first home-grown potatoes of the year (pictured). Last night, I taught a cooking class on how to make potato gnocchi. Several students took the class because of their previous gnocchi-making failures. We discussed how much flour to add to the potato and how to knead the dough. Then Heidi […]

1. Because fresh garlic tastes better than any garlic you can buy! 2. It is an essential flavoring in so many foods, so it is important to use the best quality. 3. If stored properly, the crop will last a year — that is, until the next crop is harvested. 4. It is a low-maintence plant for home-gardeners to grow. […]

How do peas know? We installed the chicken wire along the row of green peas and less than two hours later, the pea tendrils had reached out and touched the wire! Peas like to climb up things, rather than flop on the ground, so their tendrils curl around any support they can find. Peas are rarely […]

Last year, I described the advantages of planting and staking tomatoes using the Florida weave. We liked the technique so much that we are doing it again. In the first picture, the tomato are planted between the stakes. (In the background are our potato plants, which have grown like Jack-and-the-beanstalk, and the much smaller rows […]

What is the signature food of St. Louis? It used to be toasted ravioli, but when was the last time you actually ate a deep-fried ravioli – especially since they are all pre-fab and frozen now. Then, St. Louisans were swept with a cheesecake craze, then a bread pudding craze, all concurrent with the spinach-artichoke dip craze. […]

Our garlic is growing! We also planted 500 seed potatoes last week, in the dirt on the right-hand side of the photo. We planted Yukon gold, red Pontiac, and cobbler potatoes. Potatoes are a 90-day crop, so we are planning to have fresh garlic-potato salad for the Fourth of July! The green plants on the left-hand […]

My freezer contains a bag of green peas, a loaf of homemade bread, several 3-pound bags of tart pitted cherries, several one-cup containers of homemade tomato sauce from last summer, and — but wait, where’s the stock!? When I got there, the cupboard was bare. I had used up all my chicken stock, so I […]