“To have enough, you must have too much.” Have you heard it said?

Years ago I read this quote applied to growing food, and it began to ring true the longer I maintained a kitchen garden. Inevitably, if you plant just enough to produce what you believe you will eat, you come up short.

In reaction, each spring we plant more than we know we will eat, and often end up with even more than that. And sometimes still… less.

Balance rarely found.

Home gardening is imprecise. It’s always too much or not enough… and that’s where preserving comes in. We find ways to extend the “too much” to get us through the “not enough.”

But it can go kind of wrong…

When we aren’t strategic about what we grow in the first place, and, when we are overly ambitious about what we can preserve, we end up with mountains of tomatoes destined for home-canned sauce (that we never make) or bags of raw kale (languishing in the freezer).

Or we just start giving away every unwanted zucchini. (That was me.)

But a few years ago, I started keeping a notebook of harvest preservation successes, and this was my rubric for inclusion: The only things I would allow myself to write in the book were the things I used up—happily.

The aforementioned raw kale, along with some roasted and pureed butternut squash, did not make it in the book. I forgot those things were in the freezer.

But the basil oil, the no-peeling-required tomato sauce, the sage brown butter, the lemongrass and peppermint teas, the dried lavender, red pepper flake, and oregano… they all went in the notebook because I reached for them again and again until they were gone. They proved their value.

The trick, I’ve learned, is developing a mentality towards preserving that includes two things:

1. knowing how you will use it, and knowing that you will use it, before you save it

2. having a repertoire of simple hacks that don’t require a lot of preparation, fancy equipment, or time

Develop that mentality, and you will start choosing what to grow based on what you know you will eat and will realistically have time to preserve.

And with that preamble, let me introduce you to a new little zine I wrote in collaboration with Good Printed Things to share six simple ways to preserve what you grow—easy-to-execute methods for turning the abundance of any particular thriving thing in your garden into something you’ll be excited to consume later, without exhausting yourself. (You are, of course, already putting a lot of energy into the growing part!)

Garden to Table All Year:
A Minimalist’s Guide to Preserving

No method requires fancy canning equipment or a dehydrator. Some only ask you to reference the size of your pot for measurements, or are simple to memorize as a basic ratio. Some are as easy as hanging something up to dry.

I hope these methods feel simple enough to encourage experimentation: I share foundational concepts and ways I have applied them, but you can take it and run with it. It’s small enough to tuck into a preserving notebook of your own and keep on a shelf in the kitchen.

Garden to Table All Year is available for the first time today—and if I say so myself, it’s incredibly cute. Get the zine here!

Read on for details about a spring Plant Share event, where to buy plants this spring, and a few books and podcasts I've been into.

Spring 2026

What I’m Reading & Listening To

The Joe Gardener Podcast - Episode 456 Food Preservation for Gardeners

We already had the zine done when I heard this episode interviewing Staci and Jeremy Hill, authors of The Preserver’s Garden. My little zine will get you started—their book would help you go all in.

The Complete Guide to Home Permaculture
Brandy Hall

I just finished it: Extremely practical. Brandy gives you detailed instructions for building swails and rain gardens, and developing soil in problem areas of your land, like slopes. If you are interested in sustainability and permaculture but aren’t sure where to start, this book is accessible to the home gardener.

This and That

Spring Plant Share with Mill Village Farms

Saturday, May 2 from 10am - 1pm, join me for a spring plant sharing event.

• I’m thrilled these little events have picked up momentum and that we’re able to keep doing them each year. If you’ve never been to one, this is all you need to know: We’re giving away free plants.

• Cuttings of houseplants, divisions of perennials and bulbs, seeds, seedlings, sometimes full on trees. People who have, bring things to share. People who don’t, unabashedly receive. That’s why we don’t call it a “swap” anymore…you’re welcome even if you don’t have a plant to trade.

• I’ll have a table at Mill Village’s Block Party: Hope to see you there!
  1186 Pendleton Street, Greenville, SC, 29611

Spring Plant Sales

A few of the best places to get plants this spring:

• South Carolina Botanical Garden Spring Plant Sale

  • When: April 11, 2026 (9 AM-1 PM) and April 25, 2026 (9 AM-1 PM)

  • Highlights: Extensive native plants, trees, perennials, and shrubs, with expert staff available.

• Greater Greenville Master Gardeners Plant Sale

  • When: April 25, 2026, 8 AM - Noon

  • Highlights: A wide selection of healthy plants at bargain prices.

• South Carolina Native Plant Society (SCNPS) Upstate Sale

  • When: April 18, 2026, 9 AM - 1 PM

  • Highlights: Specialty native plants for local landscapes.

Find other vetted places to buy plants here in Upstate, SC in the map I helped develop: Paper Routes - Plants Map

What I’m Growing

A list of what is actively growing in my kitchen garden right now (not counting warm season seedlings… it would just get too long).

• Blueberries

• Carrots

• Garlic

• Greens: Arugula, Buttercrunch, Lacinato Kale, Romaine, Spinach, and Winter Rouge

• Herbs: Rosemary, thyme, chives, cutting celery, green onion, parsley, peppermint and sage.

• Meyer lemon

• Radishes

• Strawberries

Springs Past

I just start seeds outside.

No Humidity Domes or Heat Mats in Nature

Now before I get into what works for me, and a few of the expert endorsements for this method that gave me confidence to experiment a few years back, let me offer a few observations.

1. I think we all know seeds in nature do not require plastic humidity domes, nor electric heat mats, nor sterilized seed-starting medium, nor 16 hours of special lighting, nor gentle fans, for germination. Warmth, humidity, moisture, wind and soil can all be found outside. It’s only when we start seeds in our homes in winter that we find the need to create super-special environments.

2. MOST of the issues people experience when trying to start vegetables and flowers from seed—the things that make them give up, convinced they are doomed to buy starter plants forever—are the result of the way conditions work against you when you are trying to garden inside.

3. Seeds are cheap enough that it is really worth it to experiment.

4. I live in a warm climate (zone 8a), which makes this possible.

Inside, you are responsible for heat, humidity, moisture, light, darkness, and air circulation. Outside, you are mostly just responsible for moisture.

You can let the sun warm the soil. You can let the breeze toughen up those little stems. You can let the humidity in the air be sufficient. I mean really, how many of us are running humidifiers all winter to keep our NOSES from drying out? My house in February is not super-conducive to biological anything.

You, of course, need to keep an eye on danger of frost, and protect those seedlings if it’s coming.

And you need to keep an eye on small containers to make sure they don’t dry out. I’m a big fan of starting seeds in dappled shade for this very reason.

It just really doesn’t have to be as complicated as you may think.

Two Experts Who Go Rogue

Brie Arthur, AKA Brie the Plant Lady, based in the Raleigh area, was the first expert I saw demonstrate you can do it this way. I was already experimenting with it when she posted this video in February 2022:

And, in her book A Way to Garden, Margaret Roach advocates for moving seeds you start inside to dappled shade outside as soon as possible, rather than letting seedlings grow for weeks inside and slowly moving them outside right before planting.

My Exact Method for Starting Seeds Outside

First off, I should say I direct sow seeds as often as possible. Things like radishes, peas, cucumbers, nasturtiums, calendula, kale, parsley, celery, cilantro, lettuce and carrots I just sprinkle on bare soil in my raised beds, and poke the bigger seeds into the soil with my finger.

But for warm and hot season vegetables and herbs that I want to give a head start—think tomatoes, peppers, basil, and dill—and flowers that I want to place in specific spots in my garden, this is how I start them outside:

Method 1: Recycle Plastic Egg Trays

• I save up plastic egg containers throughout the winter, and poke holes in the bottom of each cell.

• I fill the egg cells with Soil3 humus compost. I’m noting this for a specific reason: There is sand in this mix, and I’ve found it helps it both drain well and hold together. That’s useful when I’m popping out the seedlings to put in larger pots.

• I water the cells and sow seeds in each; label and replace the top.

• Keep it in part-sun, and as you get sprouts, pop that cell of soil with the seedlings out and move to bigger pots with soil.

• Continue popping out and potting up until all the seeds you’ve sown are growing out in bigger containers.

Key Factors

• The plastic lid acts as a built-in humidity dome, and helps warm up the soil to sprout the seeds that need heat.

• I really just use it for germination. The cells are so small that you need to get the sprouts into larger pots pretty quickly, so this method works best if you are going to be able to check on them every day for a while.

• You probably don’t want to leave the egg cartons in full sun. Tiny sprouts can dry out quickly.

Method 2: Self-Watering Planters

• Fill a self-watering planter with potting soil; water it.

• Use a dibber or your finger to mark lines for planting zones.

• Sow seeds according to the packet instructions in your various zones. Label. (You will forget what’s what…trust me.)

• Place in part-sun. I like to keep mine on my potting table. My favorite part of this method is that it does NOT dry out quickly. Those little seedlings can handle a lot of sun and a lot of neglect when they are so consistently getting the water they need.

Key Factors

• Manage the crowding: As the sprouts get their first true leaves, thin them out, move them around, or move to bigger pots to continue growing.

• I got a great tip, at that gardening panel I mentioned earlier, from Julie Thompson-Adolf who is local to me here in Upstate South Carolina and is the author of Starting and Saving Seeds: Grow the Perfect Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Flowers for Your Garden. Julie recommended using a fork to prick out tiny sprouts for potting up: Now I keep a plastic fork stuck in the planter and it truly is the gentlest way to separate and replant them.

In conclusion, I find this rather dramatically simplifies things from what I was doing with my indoor set-up when I first started experimenting with seeds.

One of the biggest issues people run into is the whole idea of “hardening off,” or slowly acclimating plants that were inside under artificial light to the full-strength light of the sun. Even if you are careful, it’s not uncommon to lose a few in the process.

Starting seeds that are used to the full-strength of the sun, the full strength of the wind, and fluctuations in temperature has equated with stronger seedlings for me, and less hassle overall. It also allows me to start later.

I wait for a nice weekend in February or early March, and it looks like we’ll have one this Saturday. Here we go!

TJ got me a potting table for Mother’s Day last year, and I instantly went to the Internet for tips from someone about how they set theirs up, and what was helpful and what wasn’t, and all the things we now expect to learn from strangers giving their thoughts away for free…

I didn’t find it, somehow. Maybe it’s out there? What even are the algorithms in these AI days?

Anyway, I fumbled my way through it on my own, and I’m quite happy with where I’ve landed. So I decided to be that person on the Internet giving away my thoughts. Take these free thoughts for what they’re worth!

What Is a Potting Table?

Or bench… sometimes people call it a potting “bench,” but I can’t see how it’s a bench in American English. It’s a table specifically designed to make potting plants simple and easy. It’s at a comfortable height, designed with cracks between the boards so you can sweep soil through to tidy it up. You can keep your supplies on it.

Where Should I Locate a Potting Table?

I recommend three things when it comes to placement:

1. Near a natural route from a door in your house that you use regularly.
   I placed mine right off my back porch.

2. Near a water spigot.
   The whole point of a potting table is to make potting and tending seedlings easy. It’s not easy if you have to cart water from somewhere else. I bought a splitter so that I could use the hose or water directly from the spigot.

3. In light or dappled shade.
   I have found it helpful to not have a potting table in full sun. For one, it makes it more comfortable for ME when I’m working at it. But two, this makes it really useful as a spot to place seedlings you are “hardening off” after starting indoors, or small plants you transplanted to a pot that need some time to settle in. Generally, a nice soft environment like this has been perfect for me.

What Should I Stock in a Potting Table?

Here’s what I have:

• A large watering can and a small watering can that can be left outside in the elements

• Water-tight bins for soil, amendments and tools (gloves, spades, hori hori, hand saw, pruners, etc.)

• Miscellaneous pots in a variety of sizes and materials

• A small hand broom for brushing off soil and leaves

• A trug

How Do I Get the Most Out of a Potting Table?

Use it! Mine instantly became the starting point of any time I spend in the garden. I typically keep my most-used tools in the pocket of a garden smock or apron on a hook by the door, and I still do that. But now I find myself going to the potting station as a first move, dropping off my water bottle there, and grabbing any other tools I need to have on me.

A few more specific ways I use it:

• To harden off seedlings: I often start my seeds outside, but if I happen to start some inside, moving them to the potting table to harden off gives them a nice dappled shade, and an easy place for me to regularly check their moisture.

• To protect protect plants from cold weather: When the temperatures turned cold this fall, I set all my pots on the potting table or on the ground at the base. I was able to easily drape a sheet over the lot when a deep freeze was in the forecast.

• To repot houseplants: When they outgrow their containers or need some fresh soil, I bring them out to the potting table and can easily take care of it. It’s amazing how having a bin with a lid for easy scooping of soil makes it feel like less of a hassle than pulling out a big bag from the garage.

• To stash purchased plants until ready to plant out: How often have I bought plants and weeks go by before I’m ready to put them in the ground? This gives me a place to keep them where I don’t forget about them and keep them watered.

• To start native seeds: One of the best ways to start native seeds is to sprinkle them in a pot and then just leave them alone. I shared more about how to do that here. I keep some going on my potting table all the time. They would look like empty pots out in the kitchen garden before the seeds sprout, but here on the table I remember what they are and it doesn’t bother me that they look empty.

• To propagate from cuttings: Same as above. Propagating from cuttings requires you to keep pots with cuttings in them moist. They don’t exactly look decorative a lot of the time. The potting table is the perfect place for them.

I will also note that my potting table has a “dry sink,” and to be honest, I’m not really sure what to use it for. Please leave a comment if you have one and use it! And, I’d love for you to comment with other ways that you use your potting table or little things you’ve learned about what you like to have handy in it.

I wait all season for a stretch of days like we are having right now. Deep into winter, but with a respite of temperature, it’s time for pruning dormant trees and shrubs.

I am approaching it systematically this year:

Pruning saw in hand, I walked out the front door and lightly pruned the saucer magnolia I can see from my office window—mostly to remove dead and cracked limbs, the result of my children climbing it. And I tackled the hollies that had branches growing towards the house.

Zone 1 complete.

Each day, as I have a block of 15-20 minutes, I’m moving around the house in zones. Two days ago I reached the juniper creeping into the driveway, and I cut the fig tree back to a manageable height. They put on 2-3 ft. of growth each year, so to prevent challenging harvesting (and it overgrowing the space) I cut each stem back to about 4-5 ft.

Yesterday, I reached the sun hydrangeas. Did you know you can cut them way back? I just learned that a couple years ago. It’s made a huge difference in how they look throughout the growing season.

In a day or two I will have completed the circumference of my property without it feeling like big work.

And, this year, I’ve been saving strong limbs, big and small, as I go to create a nice little stack of staking poles. I have dreams of rustic trellises and dead hedges. I should’ve been born in the English countryside.

MORE OF MY POSTS ABOUT PRUNING:

You might be a gardener if you (like me) spend the coldest days of the year…

mentally sketching your garden were you to dig up a clump of (what looks like) nothing and tote it round back to better spot…

Or actually sketching the full potential of the view from your back porch while wrapped up in a sweater blanket with a cup of hot coffee…

Or watering with frozen fingers the lavender cuttings you hope are rooting…

Or traipsing through deep fallen leaves to check hellebores for flowers ready to cut and arrange…

Or dutifully marching a citrus tree around that needs to be arranged for sunshine, when available, and neglectfully protected from icy winter in a dark garage, when warranted…

Or winter sowing seeds you will not remember you cast…

Or gleefully eat kale, yes, kale because you grew it yourself and it’s just about the only thing carrying on without complaining.

Gardeners’ gotta be gardening.

You might say you’ve been “bitten by the bug.”

In conversation recently with a friend, she said that must be her problem: The bug didn’t bite her yet. That’s ok: It may bite at any time ;)

It did in fact bite my son, Josiah, about two weeks ago, when Siena announced the garden spot I gave her is “too small,” and that she wants a bigger one. Josiah pounced on the opportunity and said he’d take it. He spent 4 hours cleaning it up, building a tiny stick fence, decorating it with holly branches and adding a little stool so he could watch his plants grow.

He’s asked me to check on it with him every day after school, and sometimes tells me he’s going outside to “relax in my gahhhh-den.” (Frigid, sitting by the road on the tiny stool, but so proud.)

He’s frustrated the seeds haven’t sprouted yet. I tell him it’s winter, to which he shows no respect. I told him he seems to have gotten bitten by the gardening bug, and that freaked him out. He’s pretty sure he didn’t and that he would remember.

I’ve used up all my basil oil, and garlic, and sage brown butter. Most of my dried oregano and peppermint tea is gone, and we’re down to a few jars of homegrown tomato sauce. I feel it coming on: Real winter. Top it off with a winter storm warning for this weekend.

I’ve grown far more appreciative of January and February in recent years, the slowness of them and the coziness. Winter might be the season when gardeners are really made: Frosty weather can kill motivation and interest, or drive it to new (worrisome?) heights. Like plants are actually gaining strength in dormancy, so too can curiosity probe into deeper ground.

NEWS! I'm working on another zine with Good Printed Things that will come out this spring, I can't wait to show it to you. And SAVE THE DATE: I'm teaming up with Mill Village Farms to host our next Plant Share event at their Block Party Market on May 2nd. More details to come.

Winter 2025

What I’m Reading & Listening To

Garden Gab Club Podcast & Substack newsletter
Tessa Pinner and Molly Hendry

I mentioned this podcast last time, but I have a specific episode to share in this newsletter: Garden Gab Club 010: On Winter Gardening and Horticultural Hormones. Around minute 30, Tessa and Molly share their 10 favorite things about gardening in winter, and it is delightful.

The Complete Guide to Home Permaculture
Brandy Hall

I don’t have this book in hand yet, but I was given it for Christmas on pre-order. It released yesterday, January 20. I’ve been following Brandy Hall for a while now. She has a permaculture design business out of Atlanta. This book was written to make permaculture principles practical for home gardeners; I’m really looking forward to it.

This and That

Pearce B Designs

Do you follow Pearce Butcher @pearcebdesigns? She’s a Greenville local and Furman grad who owns a landscape design business. She shares some really helpful posts on Instagram.

Soil3 Big Yellow Bags are on sale

I plan to get another Big Yellow Bag this year, as we have some new beds to fill and some place in our lawn to level. It’s pricey, and I don’t buy it every year, but this is really good stuff. Right now the big bags are $30 off.

Subpod Mini

I bought a mini Subpod before we moved and just now have it installed as a small composting system close to the house for our kitchen scraps. My kids are really excited to have pet worms this spring.

Pruning Time!

Consider this your reminder that it’s a good time to start pruning trees and shrubs. If you need some help, read my Pruning Is Not Instaworthy post.

What I’m Growing

A list of what is actively growing in my kitchen garden right now.

• Arugula

• Bok choy

• Carrots

• Garlic

• Herbs: Rosemary, thyme, chives, cutting celery, green onion, parsley, peppermint and sage

• Kale: Lacinato

• Lettuce: Buttercrunch, Winter Rouge, Romaine

I need to take a little sidebar here to talk about Romaine lettuce. I’ve never grown it before this year, and I had no idea it was so cold hardy. I’ve had an experiment going in my kitchen garden with a cold frame on one bed and no cold frame on the other. The Romaine is mostly in the exposed bed, and even multiple nights in a row in the 20s has not damaged it at all. I am planning to move more of it into the cold frame before the storm and low 10s weather we’re about to get. Romaine will be an every year planting for me going forward!

• Radishes

• Spinach

• Meyer lemon

Winters Past

Resources

The Uncomplicated Gardener - Good Printed Things

Discover six steps I learned over time that brought me success and joy growing and tending plants without overcomplicating things.

Plants Map - Paper Routes - Good Printed Things

Find the best places to buy plants here in Upstate, SC.

She acquiesced to my bullying and ordered the drinking chocolate, quite agreeing in the end. A silly family mantra was born.

I feel exactly the same way about the “New Year.” You don’t start something in winter. Why do we force it?

The new year should start in April. Can we all agree? There’s nothing about January that feels bright and new, except of course when we get cheat days on end of 60-degree weather—and this year we have.

Years like this are fun in the garden. Everything I planted in early fall is thriving. I’m not starting anything new at all, but I am still harvesting things to eat, daily. It’s still hibernating, but with perks.

I’ll get my seed catalogs soon, and the plants I’m dreaming of will be back in stock.

But right now I’ll take the win that we are eating greens and herbs from the garden I planted last fall, and playing board games in our cozy room every night after dinner.

The words haven’t come lately, but I’ve been gardening every day.

TJ moved a mountain of free woodchips (ChipDrop!) to make a picnic area in the back, and I’ve been moving plants every weekend that got too much sun over the summer, or not enough water, or too much attention from the deer.

I saw the beech and hickory trees in my wooded back garden turn yellow, and it inspired me to order some spice bush to frame the picnic area.

I set up my cold frame and transplanted greens, and sowed more carrot and radish seeds. I water plants mindfully, enjoying it in the cool air and with crunchy leaves underfoot.

Fall is my favorite partly because its garden pace feels slower. Less needy. Less sweaty. More whimsical. More relaxed.

Fall gardening is productive in nourishing but unflashy things.

Case in point: I’ve been making salads of baby kale, spinach and romaine. Have you ever grown your own?

If you think you don’t like spinach or kale, try it. The flavor is significantly sweeter and milder than anything I’ve ever had from the store. And they are cut-and-come-again plants. Your salad regrows itself after you trim the outer leaves.

I have a growing list of topics I want to write about, but I keep NOT writing and instead, planting, meandering, tending—and standing too long just staring at a garden bed trying to imagine full-grown trees and shrubs and the spaces in between. My neighbors probably think I’m crazy.

Weather like we’re having right now reminds me why this became my year-round hobby.

Is anyone writing books like this for children anymore?

I didn’t garden as a kid, but I found my way to it in my late 20s, when I was becoming more and more aware that life and career very online wasn’t filling my soul, and perhaps was withering it.

The book contains so much to inspire:

That a hidden away garden could heal and bring out the best in a neglected child.

That wonder at the natural world is essential to flourishing.

That much of what ails us requires sunshine and fresh air and the resistance of the wind to be overcome.

That the scent of a changing season is magic.

I apparently absorbed much of this belief from that movie, and by spending a lot of time outdoors myself as a kid, in the woods, cutting vines to swing across the creek like George of the Jungle.

I just finished reading the book aloud to Siena again, for the second time. We first read it when she was 5, and she liked it. At 8, she was riveted and picked up on the all the subtler themes, like the reality that a nasty child has probably experienced nasty things—but that they also are not beyond hope of blooming beautifully, given the chance.

And more than anything, that nature and wonder and kindness are exceptionally powerful.

But I wrote this sitting inside with my foot elevated to prevent swelling for the fourth day in a row, since I stepped on a 30-year-old roofing nail while gardening on Saturday morning.

I’ll spare you the gory details beyond saying I’m very thankful I’ve been exercising regularly, as I had to hop up three porch steps on one foot while gripping my big toe in the other hand to keep pressure on the wound. Oh, the drama.

I made it to the porch door and hollered for Siena. As it goes, she was on the toilet. TJ wasn’t home, so I crawled myself to the tub to wash it, and sent Siena for a whole roll of paper towels and gauze. She was amazing, but flustered, as any 8-year-old would be. She journaled her feelings later that day on a folded sheet of printer paper, titling it simply, “One Crasy Morning.” I can’t tell you how annoying it is to have an injury that requires only a single, normal-sized Band-Aid become this disruptive to my life.

I had just finished tending to my baby lettuces at my new potting station when the offending nail found my big toe. So, on to the lettuces…

One conundrum I’ve faced each fall for years now is the transition of summer’s garden into fall’s in a small growing space that I continuously crop. I still have vigorous tomatoes and peppers and marigolds growing. Carrots nearly ready to harvest. Radish sprouts. Baby arugula that’s been growing since early August. Lots of herbs. I’m not ready to wipe it all out in favor of winter’s greens and the garlic I don’t need to plant until mid-October.

As a practice, I thickly top-dress my raised beds with compost at each seasonal transition. So how to time it all out? It’s frustrated me.

If I top-dress thickly enough now, I’ll bury many small plants, and I’m not about to dig everything up and plant it right back again.

But I also wanted to get a head start on lettuces, spinach and kale. Usually, what has worked best for me with those tiny seeds that need sunlight for germination is to “chaos sow” them on the bare soil at the base of summer’s last stalwarts.

This year I had a modest brainwave: I have a small rectangular, self-watering planter. I filled it with good quality potting soil, and then topped it with a thin layer of seed-starting mix and sprinkled seeds across the top in 5 zones: buttercrunch, rouge d’hiver, romaine, spinach and dinosaur kale.

I’ve kept it on my potting table, making it convenient to keep watered, but it’s the self-watering nature and depth of this planter that really cuts down on the need to baby it the way sowing in conventional seed trays does.

Within days I had sprouts, and after true leaves emerged, I started pricking some out to grow in a less crowded environment using Julie Thomson-Adolf’s suggestion of a kitchen fork. Honestly, I’m not sure separating those out has made a difference (thought the fork works great!): The whole crowded planter is growing strongly like a little portable salad bar. But now I also have cell trays of 10 or so of each type of green for transplanting later.

With this, I can wait longer to top-dress the raised beds, and then transplant some of these little guys out there to grow out. But I think I might keep baby greens in this little trough all cool season.

I’ve said for years fall gardening is my favorite, and I’m finding that more true this year than ever. Just need my foot back in commission, because I have lots of plans!

PSA: Come to the Fall Plant Share event. Saturday, October 4 from 10-1pm. Bring seeds, seedlings, plants you dug up from your yard—whatever! Or bring nothing at all and just accept some free plants. It really is a generous affair. More details below.

Fall 2025

What I’m Reading & Listening To

Garden Gab Club Podcast
Tessa Pinner and Molly Hendry

Greenville’s Tessa Pinner started the Garden Gab Club podcast with her friend Molly from Alabama. It’s just conversational insights into gardening and plants, with a focus on inspiration and practical advice. Lovely.

The English Gardener’s Garden
Phaidon Editors

I picked this book up over the summer at A Maker’s Post, a delightful plant and housewares shop on Sullivan’s Island. Fair warning: It’ll make you pine for a trip to England, but I have found this book endlessly inspiring.

What I’m Growing

A list of what is actively growing in my kitchen garden right now.

• Arugula

• Carrots

• Cucumbers

• Figs

• Herbs: Rosemary, thyme, chives, green onion, lemongrass, oregano, parsely, peppermint, spearmint and sage

• Kale: Lacinato

• Lettuce: Buttercrunch, Winter Rouge, Romaine

• Peppers: Jimmy Nardello, shishito, and cayenne.

• Radishes

• Spinach

• Squash: Cucuzza

• Tomatoes: My heirloom cherry type I’ve been saving forever, originally called “Blue Berries,” and Amish Paste Romas

• Meyer lemon

Resources

Plants Map - Paper Routes - Good Printed Things

A map I wrote featuring great places to buy plants locally here in Upstate, South Carolina. Illustrated by Charis JB.

The Uncomplicated Gardener - Good Printed Things

My zine sharing six steps I’ve learned over time that brought me success and joy growing and tending plants without overcomplicating things. Illustrated by Jennifer Bilton.

Fall 2025 Plant Sales & Events

• September 25 and 27 - Hatcher Garden & Woodland Preserve Plant Sale, Spartanburg

• September 26 and 27 - SC Botanical Garden Fall Plant Sale, Clemson

• September 26 and 27 - AutumnFest, Greenville State Farmers Market

• October 4, 10am - 1pm - I’m hosting a FREE Plant Share event, West Greenville. 580 Perry Ave. beside The Oxford Barber Co and Kuka Juice.

  

• October 9-11 - South Carolina Native Plant Society's Upstate Fall Native Plant Sale
  Please support this amazing organization! This is one of the best, most affordable ways to stock up on native plants.

By all means, visit a local nursery and get inspired, but before you do let me offer a suggestion…

Shop Your Own Plants

On cool mornings or evenings in September and October, I like to wander around my property looking for plants to multiply:

Those irises look crowded in that corner, and the border has holes. Dig up, divide, move around.

Some of those lilies repeated across the front bed would round out the design.

The hellebores have naturalized behind the camellias, where no one sees them. Let’s bring some into the woodland garden.

That fern is getting fried. Find a spot for him in a shadier spot.

There’s a redbud sapling behind the azaleas; let’s pot it up and give it a chance to thrive.

Anyone can do this: Share plants with yourself.

But it helps to have a few things in the back of your mind:

1. A basic understanding of some landscape design principles
   For an aesthetically pleasing garden, you need MORE plants, but not necessarily more KINDS of plants. I once heard that English treasure of a man Monty Don say a garden doesn’t need more than 5-7 different kinds of plants, it just needs more of the ones it does have.
   
   So if you have one or two of something planted somewhere, you can vastly improve the situation, generally, by adding 3-5 more of each. It’s going to look better.
   
   Related, it helps to repeat plants across your line of sight. It makes different areas of your property feel connected, designed.
   
   That’s a very simplistic primer. Read books. Watch videos. Look at sketches. It’s not hard to learn what works and why, and then you can decide when you want to break “rules.”
   
   Recalling some sound principles while you’re walking about will help you find inspiration. (It also helps me reign in my creative impulses when I do go to the plant nursery.)
   

2. A basic understanding of what to move in the fall and what to wait to move until spring
   You can always Google it to be sure, but generally speaking, I will move trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs in the fall.
   
   I wait until spring for most grasses, partly because it’s just easier to manage. You can cut them back once you start seeing some new growth begin to emerge, dig up a less unwieldy plant, divide them and replant.

Now… on to the second thing: Gardeners share!

Share Plants with Your Neighbors

If you find yourself digging up more than you feel so inclined to replant, share them with a friend. It’s just what gardeners do. All of the irises on my property were shared with me. And the blue mistflower. And the fig tree. You get the idea.

If you’re local, let me invite you to come share plants at a free event in the Village of West Greenville on Saturday, October 4!

This is our fifth or sixth “Plant Share,” and we’d love to see you there. We used to call it a swap… but new gardeners seemed to get itchy accepting free plants when they didn’t bring any to contribute. (We want you to get over that, but we do understand. We changed the name.)

At our spring event, neighbors showed up with thornless blackberry plants, native flowers and trees, cactus, veggie starter plants, seed packets, and much more.

We’d love to see you there!

Ever since I stocked my potting station, I’ve retrained myself to leave the house by the back porch door, down the steps, beside the potting station and out to the road, passing by my garden. Since that’s the only unlocked door, leaving that way will require me to come back in the same way.

And I notice my plants: this needs pruned, there’s some pest damage, that looks ready to harvest, I could divide that and move it in a few weeks, that pot needs water.

I head back to the potting station and set my coffee down, fill my big watering can, grab my pruners. If I walked fast, I might have a few minutes to take care of something. If not, I now have a mental note for later.

My garden most often sees me like this—no makeup, sometimes still in pajamas that pass for loungewear.

As I wrote about in The Uncomplicated Gardener, success with plants at the most fundamental level comes down to what you notice and the habits you build.

The habit of spending 15 quiet minutes in the cool of the morning doting on plants feels positively Victorian to me, in the best possible way.

I follow that up with journaling, reading and prayer on my back porch, then I start my work day, already filled up body and soul.

And when I miss starting the day this way, or let myself get distracted by technology or to-do’s, wow, I miss it.

I fully recognize and appreciate this season of life for what it is, after having spent the last 8 years with little ones requiring all of me pretty much right up until the time the work day started. That season was precious, and this one is, too.

The point of this post isn’t really about mornings: It’s about finding where it fits in your day to be a gardener and enjoying it.

I don’t believe anyone is born with a green thumb, but there are some things “green thumb people” do that other people do not. In this series, I’m sharing the Top 10 things I’ve learned to do that have developed my green thumb.

Green Thumb Tip No. 4: Chill Out About the Bugs, But Don't Ignore Them Completely

You don’t need to become an entomologist to have a successful garden.

You mostly just have to NOTICE pests and find out what to do or not to do before they wreak havoc.

A random weird little guy is often harmless.

But when you notice clusters of bugs or eggs on leaves, or spiky stems where there used to be flourishing leaves, it tends to be worth investigating.

Look closely, and you’ll sometimes catch the little cabbage worm in the act of stripping your arugula leaves.

Trust your instincts and Google anything you’re not sure about. Sometimes all you have to do is turn your hose to “jet” and show ‘em who is boss.

Or clip the leaf they are clustered on off the plant, drop it on the ground, and stomp to bits.

Tomato hornworms can be hand-picked off (ick) and dropped in soapy water, though I like to use them to make friends with birds by offering them an easy meal. And I usually just clip the whole branch off so I don’t have to touch them, ha!

My first encounter with hornworms was when I noticed some funky grenade shapes droppings on my tomato plants one year, didn’t bother to investigate, and awoke the next morning to find almost ALL 😯 of the leaves of my plant had been eaten.

Truly, this tip harkens back to my first post in the series that was about Finding a Daily Rhythm. You have to notice the bugs, or you won’t be able to do anything.

Resist the urge to grab some product to spray all over your plants. It’s very often not necessary, nor even the most effective way to get the result you’re after. Indiscriminate sprays almost always have the unintended consequence of hurting beneficial bugs in your garden—insects which when allowed to thrive will keep the the true pests under control.

Remember, predators come in after prey. If you want ladybugs, you’ll first need to chill out about aphids.

I’m not going to lie, contending with pests is not one of my favorite parts of gardening, but with each passing year they intimidate me less as I learn the quick fixes and the best ways to manage things organically.

I learn what pest pressure I can be a little lazy about, and what needs immediate attention.

And when I’m stuck, I send my actual entomologist friend @bilbo_bugginz a snapshot with caption “HELP!” 😉

Read the other articles in this series:

No. 1 » Find a Daily Rhythm

No. 2 » Value the Full Lifecycle of Your Plants

No. 3 » Plant Flowers WITH Your Vegetables

I share more tips like this to help you become a gardener in my zine “The Uncomplicated Gardener” available from Good Printed Things!

I cut the cucumber vines to the ground and pulled them off the trellis.

That used to be painful to do—killing something still growing, with fruit still on it—but I now recognize when something is past the point of deserving continued investment. Would that it were so simple in life as in the garden.

From a distance, they seem fine. But up close, some leaves were showing signs of powdery mildew. Each of the nearly ripe fruit had a worm inside it. I have three large jars of pickles in the fridge, and three more cucumbers yet to be eaten.

It was time.

I will plant more cucumber seeds in a week or so. I learned last year sowing a second crop in August produces plenty more cucumbers.

To make room for those new, healthy vines, I had to rip out these full grown vines, still producing but showing signs of problems. No longer worth the effort of maintaining.

Such is life.

Hydrangeas

Siena told me, as I was destroying on the aforementioned cucumbers, that she was going to go prune her garden.

When I checked in, she had chopped off 10-12 large white panicle hydrangea flowers from canes that had flopped over after the last storm, encroaching on her little plot.

I was mad.

But the truth is…

It was time for them, too.

The whole shrub was basically lying on its side. The flowers were too heavy for the 6 ft canes supporting them.

Somehow it was easier to let go of the cucumber vines, that I know I can easily replace, than to let go of those fluffy white flowers that I know I won’t see again until next year.

I was letting them lie in the dirt, creating the conditions for all kinds of problems, because I just didn’t want to let them go.

Breaking up is hard to do.

Salvia

The dark purple salvia I planted last spring championed herself the queen of flowers by lasting all the way through winter (including those super-cold stretches we had last year) and again through this spring.

But she’s looked haggard since summer began—brittle and brown, with some slight purple petals holding onto their former glory.

I made some half-hearted attempts to prune her back to little green flushes of leaves that were growing from this side or that.

But this week, July came reaping, and I finally said goodbye.

I have gaping holes in my border now, but were they really being “filled” by that undead salvia?

Hoping for more than can be expected is human-nature.

Embracing the cycles of sowing, pruning, and endings are a way of life for the gardener, but that doesn’t mean they always feel easy.

Less about volume and more about the frequency with which we eat from it? The cadence?

• That salad we make for lunch.

• Those quick pickles we relish.

• Those berries in yogurt.

• Those figs on toast.

The difference between the once per month CostCo run and a daily walk to a shop for just what is needed.

I love it when the garden overflows with good things, but I also love it when I fully appreciate and savor whatever it happens to be giving me at the moment without wishing it was more.

Ultimately, productive is to you what you decide it is. For me, my garden feels most productive when I have a reason to go pick something and eat it daily.

And if I’m eating fresh picked produce everyday in small amounts, how productively will that show up in my health long term?

I’m here to find out.

It’s summer.

Both of my kids are staying home with me (while I work from home!) for the summer for the first time, and we are having a blast. Some days they drive me wild, but mostly, we’re just soaking up all the whimsy.

You never know what the morning hour before I start work will bring in summer: Building a baby frog playground at the base of a tree. Mixing up a batch of GIANT bubble liquid and running through the grass with a bubble wand. Temporary tattoos. Catching lizards and lightning bugs.

This is the time of year when I can’t help myself: I’m checking on my kitchen garden every few hours. A good excuse to get up from the computer for a bit and put my fingers in the soil.

I’ve been making a salad for lunch every day out of whatever I found that morning. Since lettuce doesn’t grow that well through the hot Carolina summer, I’ve been getting creative. Anything can be a salad. It’s looked like:

• baby arugula, cucumber, tomatoes, mint, radish pods, nasturtiums +
  feta, homemade croutons, lime juice, olive oil and flaky sea salt

• cucumber, carrots, lemon basil, green onion, cutting celery +
  pepitas, grapes, goat cheese, lemon juice, olive oil and flaky sea salt

• baby arugula, Italian basil, tomatoes, cucumbers +
  parmesan, white wine vinegar, olive oil, flaky sea salt and pepper

The figs should be in soon, some strawberries are still producing, peppers are ramping up… the possibilities are endless.

This has been a really fun exercise because I crave fresh things in the summer, and sweet lettuces can’t really be the base of it for me.

I’ve fallen in love with the serendipity of eating clean and fresh things by having a salad bar right outside my door.

P.S. ANOTHER thing I love about the summer garden is thinking of ways to use what I'm growing now later on. I started a notebook two years ago where I only allowed myself to add things I preserved in simple ways and then actually used up. There's no point in freezing loads of kale if you never reach for it again—that's a lesson well-learned from personal experience.

I'm working on a new resource to help you think more creatively about "preserving" in super-simple ways that are approachable and easy to do from memory and feel. More to come!

Summer 2025

What I’m Reading & Listening To

The Saltwater Table: Recipes from the Coastal South
Whitney Otawka

This is a cookbook, not a gardening book, yes. But it’s unique in the way it’s organized by seasons that resonate so deeply with me as a South Carolinian:
Oyster Season, Vegetable Season, Shrimp Season, Heat Season, and Smoke & Cedar Season.

Eating seasonally here is different. We don’t just have 4 equally distributed seasons. Vegetable cool season is super short, and really begins in winter not spring. “Heat” season is extra long, but then, so is our “smoke and cedar” season, as we can cook outside pretty much fall through winter with some rare exceptions.

Whitney’s recipes are garden-to-table and feel authentic to the south while also having a lot of creativity and uniqueness inspired by other regions where she has lived. I’m loving it.

Deer Resistant Design: Fence-Free Gardens That Thrive Despite the Deer
Karen Chapman

For whatever reason, in our third year in this house the deer have finally started doing some damage—mostly to ornamentals like hydrangeas but also to the blackberry patch. They’ve left my raised beds alone so far, and I think that has to do with the way it’s situated on the slope, the rocks, and the spiky and fuzzy plants I planted around the whole space.

I’m trying to learn from what’s working so I can incorporate more strategies to protect the edibles on the rest of our property without putting in a fence.

What I’m Growing

A list of what is actively growing in my kitchen garden right now.

• Arugula: I’m growing in the shade under the tomatoes. It’s working well!

• Blueberries

• Blackberries

• Carrots

• Cucumbers

• Figs

• Herbs: Rosemary, thyme, chives, dill, green onion, lemongrass, oregano, peppermint, spearmint and sage

• Nasturtiums: I’m listing them even though they are flowers, because I’ve actually been eating them this year

• Peppers: Jimmy Nardello, shishito, and cayenne.

• Radish pods: the radishes have bolted but I’m still eating the pods

• Strawberries

• Squash: Butternut and Delicata, with Blue Hubbard as a trap crop

• Tomatoes: My heirloom cherry type I’ve been saving forever, originally called “Blue Berries,” and Amish Paste Romas

• Meyer lemon

Resources

Plants Map - Paper Routes - Good Printed Things

A map I wrote featuring great places to buy plants locally here in Upstate, South Carolina. Illustrated by Charis JB.

The Uncomplicated Gardener - Good Printed Things

My zine sharing six steps I’ve learned over time that brought me success and joy growing and tending plants without overcomplicating things. Illustrated by Jennifer Bilton.

Recipe: Refrigerator Pickles

I started making these last year and they were a hit. Everyone who tasted them asked me for the recipe. I’ve been sharing it via text constantly this summer, so I thought I’d share it with you, too.

Basic Ratio to scale up or down

• 1 cup water

• 1 cup white wine vinegar

• 1 T kosher salt

Dissolve the salt in the vinegar/water solution. (I haven’t found any need to heat it to accomplish that.) Then, add whatever flavors you want to your jars. The combo we loved last summer was this. All of the numbers are per jar.

• 2-3 thyme sprigs

• 10-15 black peppercorns

• 10-15 coriander seeds

• 1-2 cloves of garlic, sliced

We didn’t have dill growing last year, but we do this year so we’ll try that this go-round. Sometimes I added red pepper flakes to make spicy ones for TJ.

Let them soak at least 4 hours to get the flavors to start melding together, but 24 hours is better!

My top tip is to pick a vinegar you really like. A lot of the recipes online just say “white vinegar” or “cider vinegar.” If you don’t like the vinegar, you probably won’t like the pickles. Enjoy!

I couldn’t tell you how long they are “good,” because ours never lasted longer than a few days: I had to keep an eye on Siena, as she would take a jar to her playroom with her and finish the whole thing off in one sitting :)

I don’t believe anyone is born with a green thumb, but there are some things “green thumb people” do that other people do not. In this series, I’m sharing the Top 10 things I’ve learned to do that have developed my green thumb.

Green Thumb Tip No. 3: Plant Flowers WITH Your Vegetables

Flowers attract pollinators and beneficial predator species, which equals more food YOU get to eat. You want to create an ecosystem.

They also just make your veggie garden more attractive overall, and that creates extra enjoyment.

When people tell me they tried growing X last year and it just didn’t work out, I always ask, “Did you plant anything else with it?”

Nine times out of 10 they just tried to grow one or two vegetables all by themselves.

I like to layer in marigolds, nasturtiums, borage, bachelor’s buttons, echinacea, calendula, sunflowers, zinnias, salvia and more. Many of those are also edible and pretty thrown into salads.

The smaller flowers and trailing flowers (like marigolds, calendula and nasturtiums) work well planted right there in the raised beds mixed in and among the herbs and vegetables. I landscape around my raised beds with the larger flowers.

You can also let perennial herbs like thyme and rosemary flower without sacrificing the plant, and the bees love them. (Be careful letting herbs in the mint family flower… you’ll have 1000s of baby mint plants.)

Another note: The spacing guidelines on seed packets are for farmers trying to get the highest yield possible. If you’re growing in raised beds or another small space, you don’t necessarily have to follow what’s on the packet.

For a nice full look in a raised bed garden, I heard Monty Don say one time not to space plants more than a hand-width apart. Now, that clearly doesn’t work for larger plants like zucchini, tomatoes, etc., but I’ve found it works well to get a full look with flowers, herbs, and smaller space veggies like carrots or radishes.

There’s no reason a kitchen garden shouldn’t be beautiful, especially when beauty is what draws in the very species your garden depends on to thrive!

Read the other articles in this series:

No. 1 » Find a Daily Rhythm

No. 2 » Value the Full Lifecycle of Your Plants

I share more tips like this to help you become a gardener in my zine “The Uncomplicated Gardener” available from Good Printed Things!

I also hadn’t slept well for three days in a row, which is unusual for me. I think I had just been juggling too many things for too many days.

He said just go do whatever you want for a few hours.

And I thought about it for just a few minutes...

All I wanted to do was go piddle around outside in my garden.

So from about 6:30-8:30pm I pruned, trellised, harvested, watered and wandered around smelling flowers, lemon basil and rosemary. My phone battery died shortly after I went outside, so I didn’t even have that to distract me. (I snapped these photos the next night.)

I worked up a sweat, and just as the sun was setting, I took a lap around the neighborhood to appreciate the cooler night air and to notice the lightning bugs making their appearance.

I showered and stretched and went to bed, and I slept like a baby for the first time since Saturday.

Good for my mental health, good for my physical health, gardening is a complete hobby.

Sometimes, hobby doesn’t even sound like a rich enough word.

For the sake of their privacy, I won’t show you pictures of my neighbors’ gardens, just mine.

But it’s warming my heart every time a take a walk.

One neighbor got a greenhouse delivered.

Two neighbors have added raised beds and stunning flower borders.

Some lined the fence outside their vegetable plot with hydrangeas and daffodils.

One put in a line of cattle-panel arches down a fenced back wall.

I chatted with the neighbor who’s house faces mine (and therefore has had a front row seat to what I’ve been building over the last 3 springs) as he was shoveling soil into a raised bed and helping his wife plant shrubs and flowers along their driveway up to the mailbox.

I told him it looked amazing and thought it was funny so many of us were *technically* breaking the HOA rules by growing food gardens visible from the front yard. I was the first to dance on that line (my garden is on the side... but you could see it from the front until the shrubs started growing bigger). He said we might as well put a motion forward to change the rule, since so many of us are breaking it. Ha! Strength in numbers :)

The beautiful part for me is that we’re all working it into our landscaping, and it has only made the neighborhood more beautiful.

I like to say I’m a rules person, unless I think a rule is stupid. I’m not as likely to throw the rule off all together than to propose a new one I think is better.

So for anyone reading who happens to be on my neighborhood HOA (I know there are some of you here 😉), I suggest our new rule be as follows:

Vegetables may be grown where your property receives sunlight, so long as you take care to make it beautiful.

I don’t believe anyone is born with a green thumb, but there are some things “green thumb people” do that other people do not. In this series, I’m sharing the Top 10 things I’ve learned to do that have developed my green thumb.

Green Thumb Tip No. 2: Value the Full Lifecycle of Your Plants

The bolted leafy greens. The seedheads of dried up flowers. The roots of the legumes. Look for their full potential.

One thing I’ve learned is to embrace rather than bemoan the senescence of plants—especially the cool season, early bolters that flower before a lot of other things and attract pollinators before your marigolds bloom. They may seem past their prime, but there are reasons to leave them in the garden for a while.

Take bolted radishes and cilantro, for example. They both make pretty filler flowers for rustic bouquets, and when the flowers fade, you get radish pods (which taste like—you guessed it—radishes!) and coriander seeds for your spice drawer.

In both of those examples you can let the seeds dry out right there in the garden and then harvest and store for next year’s planting.

Once the arugula above bolted, I left the full patch in flower through the early spring when little else was in bloom. And then as I needed the space for planting tomatoes, I cut back all but one stem that was going to seed and left it there to dry out.

I cut the English peas down at soil level and left their nitrogen-fixing roots in the soil to do their work.

I leave dried out echinacea and sunflowers standing for the birds to browse for seeds.

Many varieties of kale are biennial: So you can cut them back to a stump when they bolt and they’ll come back for another go-round.

Those pretty English cottage gardens everyone loves are largely made up of self-sowing flowers that have to be left standing (haggardly) until they develop and drop seed for next year.

Seasoned gardeners find the value the full life span of the things they plant.

Read the other articles in this series:

No. 1 » Find a Daily Rhythm

I share more tips like this to help you become a gardener in my zine “The Uncomplicated Gardener” available from Good Printed Things!

I picked up An Everlasting Meal a year or so ago. Delightful. Witty. Endlessly inspiring.

I have since picked up Something Old, Something New, and as soon as they let me, I pre-ordered her next book, Feast on Your Life: Kitchen Meditations for Everyday.

Seriously. I’m obsessed.

It’s her philosophy of using what you have on hand, and turning this meal into the next meal into the next, along with brilliant prose, that stuck with me and made me a life-long raving fan. I’ve already given copies of her books as gifts to friends (and friends know I only give books I love).

This week, when I had a bowl of fresh English peas from my garden, but not nearly enough to constitute a “side dish” for a hungry family of four, I opened her book to a paragraph I had flagged for an olive oil tart dough with a ricotta custard filling, to be topped with whatever fresh vegetables you are graced with, cooked briefly in salted water.

I had peas, and garlic scapes, and flowering thyme.

Friends, it’s true: What grows together, goes together.

It was a match made in heaven.

The peas had an almost fruity quality sitting atop that salty ricotta custard, and the garlic scapes provided a subtle funky goodness.

The olive oil tart dough is unfussy but crisp like a cracker; not at all tough despite no special handling. A go-to of mine now, for certain. For some reason, skipping the step of chilling cubes of very cold butter and cutting that into flour without even slightly warming those carefully chilled cubes, makes this recipe feel more doable on an average Tuesday. You just stir in the olive oil, and chill the dough in the fridge for an hour.

I think this whole situation will be lovely with some parmesan and black pepper mixed into the tart dough, and jammy cherry tomatoes topping the ricotta later this summer.

Here’s the method for a tart that is endlessly improvisational.

Olive Oil Tart Dough with Ricotta Custard and Fresh Vegetbles

from Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

I have found basic, customizeable recipes like this very useful as a gardener. You need to have a repertoire of concepts that help you usher fresh harvests towards meals you want to eat.

Simple things like an add-whatever-vegetables-you-have tart fit the bill.