I had the pleasure of volunteering with the Franklin Park Conservatory Women’s Board at a cooking class last night. Yes, I was on my feet for almost seven hours, and yes I spent a fair amount of it around a hot wood fire. But I was truly entertained by instructors Jim Budros, Rich Terapak, and Steve Stover and I was thrilled to take pictures around the garden. Here are just some of the beautiful edibles [...]

After a spring devoid of garden success (sparrows ate the peas, springs crops like radishes bolted too quickly, lettuces were slow to grow), I welcome summer. Warmer temperatures and less torrential rain will surely help our sustainable garden grow. Grapes, tomatoes, and peppers bend with fruit and hope for autumn harvest. Greens and herbs grow by inches overnight. Insects exchange flower dust for nectar in the symbiotic relationship that creates so much of our food: [...]

What is it? Garlic scapes are the magical-wand-like flower shoots of the garlic plant. They emerge in late spring and contain a small bud that will become a flower if left on the plant. Many farmers, including me, prefer to cut the scapes away. The theory is that instead of the garlic spending energy growing the allium blossom, it will focus on the bulb. The scape is edible at this early age. Many farmers include [...]

There is nothing like homegrown fruit. Last year we enjoyed warm raspberries off the vine and perfectly sweet strawberries along with two (yes, just two) Italian plums. The anticipation for this year’s fruit starts with tiny flower buds and bitty baby fruit that are revealing themselves now. Here are some of the fruitlets we are tending this year: concord grapes, montmorency cherries strawberries, and red raspberries. Not pictured are the fuzzy green peaches, snow drop [...]

This week has been all about flowers here. When we returned to Ohio, everything was in bloom! Along with all others who marvel at plants and science, we had to trek to the Ohio State University campus to view the largest flower in the world. Rarely coaxed to bloom in a greenhouse, a Titan Arum, aka corpse flower, bloomed last weekend in the Biological Sciences greenhouse. It attracts flies with a scent that reminds many [...]

Please vote for this post to win a conference ticket. Simply click on @racheltayse is this poll. Thanks! Hounds in the Kitchen is growing not unlike the edible garden in our backyard.  I planted seeds in education, writing, and speaking from this blog.  Some have borne fruit already.  Some activities seem to reseed themselves, providing reward after reward while others are rife with weedy challenges. The garden is getting a little unruly.  It requires enough [...]

Oh, Julia Child, you dear pink tomato.  Your blushing beauty covers your spicy inside, tempting gardeners for decades. Cherokee Chocolate, dark enchantress of the bunch.  That Christmas colored skin of yours yields to a dark juicy flesh, dripping with sunlight transformed to sweetness. Then there’s you, Rutgers.  Your pleats, your bulbous inundations, inspire a thousand delicious thoughts. All together, you are a brothel of diversity, a color, size, and flavor for every preference. Sliced raw, [...]