The Garden Matched to the Kitchen The most satisfying kitchen garden isn't the one that grows the widest variety of vegetables or the most impressive specimens — it's the one that produces what the household actually cooks with regularly. A household that never makes Italian food gets marginal value from a basil plant that outproduces their use; one that makes salads daily gets enormous daily...

The Enthusiasm That Outpaces the Learning Curve Beginning gardeners typically share a common trajectory: enthusiastic spring purchase of more plants than the available space or their bandwidth can support, followed by overwatering or underwatering, followed by the discovery of pests or diseases that were missed or misidentified, followed by a late-summer garden that looks nothing like the spring vision. The plants that survive thrive; the...