By: Willi Galloway | September 11, 2012 | Comments (8)

One of my favorite rituals in early fall is freezing annual herbs, including basil, cilantro, chives, dill, and parsley, as well as homemade pesto. Freezing herbs and pesto is totally worth the (minimal) effort because you can infuse soup, stews, and sauces with garden fresh flavor throughout the winter. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | September 6, 2012 | Comments (0)

My Walla Walla sweet onions are ready for harvest, but that doesn’t mean they are quite ready for storage. Onions require a period to “cure” before you can store them away for the winter. The curing process ensures that each onion develops a tight, dry, papery outer wrapper READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | August 29, 2012 | Comments (1)

I love late summer for the food. It is prime harvest time in the garden and this weekend I squealed with delight when I realized it was time (finally!) to harvest my ‘Rattlesnake’ bush beans. These gorgeous heirloom snap beans produce wide cream and purple streaked pods that are READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | August 21, 2012 | Comments (1)

Do your young zucchini or pumpkins suddenly shrivel up and die without warning, even though the plant looks perfectly healthy? If so, not to worry. Your plant is fine! The problem is with pollination. Winter and summer squash, pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers all belong to the Cucurbit family. Cucurbits are READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | August 13, 2012 | Comments (1)

August reliably brings two things to the garden: hot days and powdery mildew. This common fungal disease looks like a silvery powder and it coats the leaves, stems, and fruit of many popular plants. In the vegetable garden READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | August 6, 2012 | Comments (0)

Cilantro leaves have a flavor that most people either love or hate. But even if you think this bright, cool season herb tastes like soap, you should still consider growing a few plants in your garden, because cilantro and the spice coriander both come from the same plant, Coriandrum sativum. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | July 30, 2012 | Comments (0)

Among passionate tomato growers, the same debate rages every summer: to prune or not to prune out suckers. Suckers are the growth that emerges where a branch of a tomato joins the plant’s main stem. If left to grow, the suckers develop into branches that eventually produce fruit. Some gardeners READ MORE

By: Amy Spitalnick | July 23, 2012 | Comments (0)

What was I thinking? I chose Napa, Calif., for our most recent vacation: Napa lies near the epicenter of a shake-up in the culinary landscape that decades ago put sustainably grown, seasonal cuisine on foodies’ maps. Not a getaway in the strictest sense for an editor at VT. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | July 16, 2012 | Comments (4)

If you fail to pinch the plant back, it will grow tall and spindly with few, if any, branches. Not only does this mean you’ll have a measly harvest, but your basil won’t taste as delicious either. Basil begins to lose its signature scent as it ages, because the oil READ MORE

By: Mary Margaret Chappell | July 5, 2012 | Comments (2)

I wish I could say I was creative enough to have thought of using this old dressing table as a planter from the start, but no. It was more of a lazy accident. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | June 28, 2012 | Comments (0)

The old adage “eat your greens” should be amended to “eat your purple and red greens.” Red and purple vegetables get their coloring from anthocyanins—plant pigments that double as super healthful antioxidants. Growing (and eating!) plants with dark red or purplish pigments is an easy way to add a dose READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | June 13, 2012 | Comments (1)

Nasturtiums The prettiest and tastiest of edible flowers! Nasturtiums have a spicy bite, but their underlying floral flavor mellows things out. Tuck them into salads, chop and add to compound butters, or simply snack on them while you are out in the garden! READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | June 5, 2012 | Comments (2)

A couple of weeks ago I sowed three rows of carrots and hardly any of the seeds sprouted. My spotty row of carrots is pictured above—so disappointing! Luckily, there is still plenty of time to sow more. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | May 31, 2012 | Comments (1)

Willi Galloway is the author of Grow Cook Eat: A Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening, and she writes about organic vegetable gardening and seasonal cooking on her blog, DigginFood. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | May 17, 2012 | Comments (0)

Container grown plants need potting soil, but they definitely do not require a mix that contains time-released chemical fertilizers and superabsorbent polymers—ingredients that many common brands include. When you’re shopping for “potting soil” it is important to understand that this term is a bit of a misnomer. Most potting soils READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | May 10, 2012 | Comments (0)

If you grow peas, it is entirely worthwhile to harvest both their pods and their delicious, delicate greens. The shoots, which are the tender tips of the vines, including the leaves, stems, flower blossoms, and tendrils, make the most fantastic and unexpected salad greens. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | May 4, 2012 | Comments (3)

On the surface, planting seedlings is pretty straightforward: simply remove them from their container and plant them in the ground. But taking extra care really helps. Here’s how to get the little plants get off to a good start: READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | April 26, 2012 | Comments (0)

Peas grow best when they can twine their tendrils around a trellis, even the so-called bush varieties, which only grow about 3 feet tall. Trellises are fun to build, and some of the most practical and pretty ones can be made with recycled or inexpensive material. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | April 18, 2012 | Comments (0)

Planting a small patch of baby greens is a no-brainer, especially if you consider the economics. A single box of mixed organic baby greens costs almost $6.00 at my supermarket. But for just $2.79 I can buy a packet of my favorite baby greens blend, ‘Paris Market Mix’ from Renee’s READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | April 13, 2012 | Comments (0)

Many of the most popular organic fertilizers and soil amendments contain animal ingredients such as bone meal, blood meal, and chicken feather meal, fish-based fertilizers, and manures. But never fear, there are plenty of vegan alternatives that will keep your garden growing healthy and strong. READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | April 4, 2012 | Comments (0)

Planting seedlings in the garden is fun. Dealing with the resulting pile of unrecyclable black plastic containers? Not so much. I have trouble bringing myself to throw plastic away, so the containers stack up in my garden shed until I have a chance to take them back to my favorite READ MORE

By: Willi Galloway | March 26, 2012 | Comments (0)

When it comes to growing vegetables, timing is everything. Peppers planted early, when the soil is still cool, tend to languish, while lettuce seedlings set into the ground too late quickly turn bitter and go to seed prematurely. Learning when to plant the vegetables you like to eat takes a READ MORE

By: Jolia Sidona Allen | March 19, 2012 | Comments (0)

We hope you are as inspired as we are to get started planting a kitchen garden after reading Grow Cook Eat author Willi Galloway’s edible garden guide, “Home-Grown Flavor,” in the April/May 2012 issue of Vegetarian Times. READ MORE

By: Vegetarian Times | February 28, 2011 | Comments (1)

This planting season, I’m fully prepared to water my garden without turning on the hose, unless of course it’s hooked up to my rain barrel. Not only are rain barrels an eco-conscious way to READ MORE

By: Vegetarian Times | August 31, 2010 | Comments (2)

Imagine the sun’s delight when a frail stem musters the strength to poke its head up through the soil. That was my first thought when I discovered that my pumpkins, planted only a week earlier, had sprouted; their green leaves spread wide in praise of the Great Pumpkin in the sky. READ MORE