Gardening Resources

Orange Poppy Seed Cake

Plant poppies soon so you can harvest aromatic fresh poppy seed to make and enjoy this moist and delicious cake. Perfect with tea or coffee for an afternoon break or lunch box snack.Cake Ingredients: 1 cup flour, sifted 1 tsp...

Orange Poppy Seed Cake

Plant poppies soon so you can harvest aromatic fresh poppy seed to make and enjoy this moist and delicious cake. Perfect with tea or coffee for an afternoon break or lunch box snack.Cake Ingredients: 1 cup flour, sifted 1 tsp...

Lavender Shortbread

These rich but not too sweet shortbread cookies have just a hint of sweet lavender fragrance and flavor. They are perfect to serve with tea, milk or lemonade. I make several batches to divide up and tuck into pretty decorative...

Lavender Shortbread

These rich but not too sweet shortbread cookies have just a hint of sweet lavender fragrance and flavor. They are perfect to serve with tea, milk or lemonade. I make several batches to divide up and tuck into pretty decorative...

Pizza Santa Fe Style

All the Southwestern flavors in a beautiful quick-to-fix summer pizza treat. One 12 inch pizza crust, ready to bake Sauce: 1 1/2 cups lightly packed cilantro leaves 1/2 cups lightly packed parsley leaves 2 cloves garlic 1 jalapeño chile, halved...

Pizza Santa Fe Style

All the Southwestern flavors in a beautiful quick-to-fix summer pizza treat. One 12 inch pizza crust, ready to bake Sauce: 1 1/2 cups lightly packed cilantro leaves 1/2 cups lightly packed parsley leaves 2 cloves garlic 1 jalapeño chile, halved...

Pumpkin Cobbler

Everyone who tries this delicious dessert likes it better than ordinary pumpkin pie. The crust mixture rises to the top during baking to form a rich topping.Filling: 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup evaporated milk 3 cups cooked mashed pumpkin or...

Pumpkin Cobbler

Everyone who tries this delicious dessert likes it better than ordinary pumpkin pie. The crust mixture rises to the top during baking to form a rich topping.Filling: 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup evaporated milk 3 cups cooked mashed pumpkin or...

Fresh Tomato Corn Soup

The combined flavors of fresh sweet corn, tomatoes and herbs are unbeatable in this simple, light soup. 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 11/2 cups chopped onions 2 pounds fresh tomatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped 11/2 tablespoons...

Fresh Tomato Corn Soup

The combined flavors of fresh sweet corn, tomatoes and herbs are unbeatable in this simple, light soup. 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 11/2 cups chopped onions 2 pounds fresh tomatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped 11/2 tablespoons...

Tomato and Red Lentil Soup

Even though spring is clearly on its way, there are still a lot of chilly, windy days that call for enjoying some warming soup. Here is an unusual and delicious soup recipe from my newest cookbook.I originally served this soup...

Tomato and Red Lentil Soup

Even though spring is clearly on its way, there are still a lot of chilly, windy days that call for enjoying some warming soup. Here is an unusual and delicious soup recipe from my newest cookbook.I originally served this soup...

Fresh Kale Salad With Peanut And Lime Dressing

A surefire crowd pleaser! The lively dressing showcases nutritious, crunchy fresh kale in an especially tasty and colorful salad. A fine first course or appetizing lunch dish. 1 large bunch kale, center ribs removed, leaves cut into very thin ribbons...

Fresh Kale Salad With Peanut And Lime Dressing

A surefire crowd pleaser! The lively dressing showcases nutritious, crunchy fresh kale in an especially tasty and colorful salad. A fine first course or appetizing lunch dish. 1 large bunch kale, center ribs removed, leaves cut into very thin ribbons...

How To Harvest And Dry Paprika Peppers

Enhance your dishes with homegrown paprika peppers. Lindsay shares tips on how to harvest and process homegrown paprika and get the tastiest results.

How To Harvest And Dry Paprika Peppers

Enhance your dishes with homegrown paprika peppers. Lindsay shares tips on how to harvest and process homegrown paprika and get the tastiest results.

Warm Up With Hearty Soups

When the weather is cold and the days are short, there are few meals that can be as satisfying and comforting to both body and spirit as a full flavored bowl of hot home made soup for lunch or dinner....

Warm Up With Hearty Soups

When the weather is cold and the days are short, there are few meals that can be as satisfying and comforting to both body and spirit as a full flavored bowl of hot home made soup for lunch or dinner....

Season’s End Harvests For Holiday Treats

Fall is the time of year to begin preparing your favorite foods for the fall and winter months ahead. Happily, the last summer garden crops can provide a wealth of raw ingredients for scrumptious desserts and holiday sweet treats. With this...

Season’s End Harvests For Holiday Treats

Fall is the time of year to begin preparing your favorite foods for the fall and winter months ahead. Happily, the last summer garden crops can provide a wealth of raw ingredients for scrumptious desserts and holiday sweet treats. With this...

Renee's Favorite Pumpkin Recipes

Fall means harvest time in the garden and calls for warm comfort food in the kitchen. When you grow your own pumpkins, it’s always great to have some new ideas for how to make delicious use of them. Here are...

Renee's Favorite Pumpkin Recipes

Fall means harvest time in the garden and calls for warm comfort food in the kitchen. When you grow your own pumpkins, it’s always great to have some new ideas for how to make delicious use of them. Here are...

Gardening with Children: Grow a Pizza Garden

Growing a pizza garden is a great way to get children outdoors and motivated to plant and eat vegetables. Our family loves homemade pizza, so my 4-year-old daughter and I have already started planning our pizza plot. So far, our...

Gardening with Children: Grow a Pizza Garden

Growing a pizza garden is a great way to get children outdoors and motivated to plant and eat vegetables. Our family loves homemade pizza, so my 4-year-old daughter and I have already started planning our pizza plot. So far, our...

Unbeatable Beets

Beets from your own garden taste terrific. Forget any old memories of rubbery, syrupy-sauced, canned beets that lurk in your tastebuds. Freshly pulled beets are truly beautiful and delicious. Their flavor is sweet, rich, hearty and earthy, and beet varieties...

Unbeatable Beets

Beets from your own garden taste terrific. Forget any old memories of rubbery, syrupy-sauced, canned beets that lurk in your tastebuds. Freshly pulled beets are truly beautiful and delicious. Their flavor is sweet, rich, hearty and earthy, and beet varieties...

Last Taste of Summer

The last long hot days of summer's end are special but always hectic. For the gardening cook, the results of all our labors are ready for daily harvesting, and often the abundance of fresh ripe vegetables and leafy herbs can...

Last Taste of Summer

The last long hot days of summer's end are special but always hectic. For the gardening cook, the results of all our labors are ready for daily harvesting, and often the abundance of fresh ripe vegetables and leafy herbs can...

Bring the World to Your Garden

Growing and enjoying a diverse kitchen garden today is a real life way of hyperlinking to almost all the world's cultures. As we Americans broaden our food horizons, the seeds we grow in our gardens represent a truly multicultural diversity...

Bring the World to Your Garden

Growing and enjoying a diverse kitchen garden today is a real life way of hyperlinking to almost all the world's cultures. As we Americans broaden our food horizons, the seeds we grow in our gardens represent a truly multicultural diversity...

Center Stage Vegetable Meals

When summer harvests are at their peak, every kitchen gardener can relate to the happy challenge of putting all that great produce to good use. If you really have a surplus, give a call to local homeless shelters or ask...

Center Stage Vegetable Meals

When summer harvests are at their peak, every kitchen gardener can relate to the happy challenge of putting all that great produce to good use. If you really have a surplus, give a call to local homeless shelters or ask...

Cooking for the Holidays: Winter Squashes and More

When the days grow short and get dark early and blustery weather sets in, it's time to tuck in the garden beds, oil and store the tools, and generally take a break from outside chores. Even in my relatively mild...

Cooking for the Holidays: Winter Squashes and More

When the days grow short and get dark early and blustery weather sets in, it's time to tuck in the garden beds, oil and store the tools, and generally take a break from outside chores. Even in my relatively mild...

Cool Kale

One of my favorite fall greens is kale. This truly ancient vegetable has been cultivated for at least several thousand years, and it is probably one of the earliest forms of the huge group of cabbage family members that have...

Cool Kale

One of my favorite fall greens is kale. This truly ancient vegetable has been cultivated for at least several thousand years, and it is probably one of the earliest forms of the huge group of cabbage family members that have...

Cooking And Growing With Fennel

Renee highlights the differences between growing bulbing fennel, the vegetable, and using the butterfly attracting herb, bronze fennel, in flavoring. Moving to the kitchen, she demonstrates making a delicious Fresh Fennel Salad with Oranges and Cashews.

Cooking And Growing With Fennel

Renee highlights the differences between growing bulbing fennel, the vegetable, and using the butterfly attracting herb, bronze fennel, in flavoring. Moving to the kitchen, she demonstrates making a delicious Fresh Fennel Salad with Oranges and Cashews.

Renee's Garden Gifts

Besides providing wonderful fresh vegetables and herbs during the growing season, the kitchen garden is the source for great gifts you'll enjoy making and giving to friends and family. Here are some of my favorites for easy cooking and crafting...

Renee's Garden Gifts

Besides providing wonderful fresh vegetables and herbs during the growing season, the kitchen garden is the source for great gifts you'll enjoy making and giving to friends and family. Here are some of my favorites for easy cooking and crafting...

Grow Great Greens

In both early spring and early fall I relish planting diverse crops of crispy flavorful greens to harvest from prepared garden beds. These fast-growing, really nutritious varieties are a delicious way to get my body and spirit awakened and toned...

Grow Great Greens

In both early spring and early fall I relish planting diverse crops of crispy flavorful greens to harvest from prepared garden beds. These fast-growing, really nutritious varieties are a delicious way to get my body and spirit awakened and toned...

Exploring Asian Vegetables

More tasty and nutritious Asian vegetable favorites are showing up in supermarkets and farmers markets nationwide every spring. If you have relegated these tasty veggies to the category of tasty exotics mostly encountered in restaurants, you’ll find adding easy to...

Exploring Asian Vegetables

More tasty and nutritious Asian vegetable favorites are showing up in supermarkets and farmers markets nationwide every spring. If you have relegated these tasty veggies to the category of tasty exotics mostly encountered in restaurants, you’ll find adding easy to...

When the Time Is Ripe: Harvesting for Best Flavor

By guest author Alice Formiga All fruits and vegetables have ways of telling us exactly when they taste best, even before we’ve picked them. As I was picking blackberries this morning, I found myself explaining to my 2-year-old how to...

When the Time Is Ripe: Harvesting for Best Flavor

By guest author Alice Formiga All fruits and vegetables have ways of telling us exactly when they taste best, even before we’ve picked them. As I was picking blackberries this morning, I found myself explaining to my 2-year-old how to...

Cool Kohlrabi

My memories of kohlrabi are full of fond nostalgia. When I was a little girl in suburban Cleveland, weekly visits to my grandmother's wonderful garden were a highlight of summer. I couldn't wait to go look at all the growing...

Cool Kohlrabi

My memories of kohlrabi are full of fond nostalgia. When I was a little girl in suburban Cleveland, weekly visits to my grandmother's wonderful garden were a highlight of summer. I couldn't wait to go look at all the growing...

Lettuce Heads Up

Growing heading lettuces, with their mosaic of colors, textures and leafy rosette shapes is one of the most rewarding aspects of having your own kitchen garden. Unfortunately, many of us have grown up identifying head lettuce only with the rock...

Lettuce Heads Up

Growing heading lettuces, with their mosaic of colors, textures and leafy rosette shapes is one of the most rewarding aspects of having your own kitchen garden. Unfortunately, many of us have grown up identifying head lettuce only with the rock...

Growing Delicious Mesclun Mixes

Nothing can surpass the delicious tastes, textures and pretty colors of tender baby salad lettuces freshly harvested, simply dressed, and enjoyed just minutes after they are cut. These luscious salads are called Mesclun today, a French term that originally meant...

Growing Delicious Mesclun Mixes

Nothing can surpass the delicious tastes, textures and pretty colors of tender baby salad lettuces freshly harvested, simply dressed, and enjoyed just minutes after they are cut. These luscious salads are called Mesclun today, a French term that originally meant...

Make A Mouthwatering Caesar Salad

Caesar Salad has gained an incredible degree of popularity these days. Both in fancy restaurants and franchised coffee shops, you can order one easily and even make it into your entree with the addition of cooked chicken or shrimp. Just...

Make A Mouthwatering Caesar Salad

Caesar Salad has gained an incredible degree of popularity these days. Both in fancy restaurants and franchised coffee shops, you can order one easily and even make it into your entree with the addition of cooked chicken or shrimp. Just...

Easy, Colorful Edible Nasturtiums

Colorful, edible, butterfly-like nasturtium blossoms have delighted gardeners and cooks alike for centuries. At different times in their history, they’ve been considered a vegetable, an herb, a flower, and even a fruit! The name nasturtium comes from the Latin words...

Easy, Colorful Edible Nasturtiums

Colorful, edible, butterfly-like nasturtium blossoms have delighted gardeners and cooks alike for centuries. At different times in their history, they’ve been considered a vegetable, an herb, a flower, and even a fruit! The name nasturtium comes from the Latin words...

Country/region

Gardening 101

Renee's Blog

Topics