Kitchen Garden Confidential

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been busy boot-strapping a container garden of vegetables and herbs outside my home in Gahanna – the challenge is to reuse or recycle as much as possible and avoid purchasing almost anything.

If everything goes well, I’ll be able to get a couple batches of pasta sauce and salsa out of the tomato plants, chilies, green onions and herbs. I’ll be planting native flowers and species that attract pollinators and insects that attack pests, and we’re already getting a couple strawberries per day from our ever-bearing variety.

Spending nearly two decades in beach rentals with tiny patios in Southern California, I’ve perfected some container gardening practices. I hope they translate to our wetter climate.

Clean Eating in Central Ohio

One of the avenues I’ve wanted to explore with The SkilletReport Columbus is the farm-to-table movement; organic and community gardens and regenerative agriculture here in Central Ohio; what does “clean eating” mean in the Midwest?

“Crime of Passion” Cocktail from True Food in Easton. Is liquor included in “clean eating?”

I grew up gardening with my grandmother in her suburban home in Steubenville, and on the sprawling field behind my family’s rural homestead near Fernwood State Forest. We hardly lived off the land – we had a hobby garden and sold hay off and on.

Put it this way; I’d often joke about my hillbilly roots to my friends in Southern California, but the first time I ate rabbit was at a Thai restaurant in San Francisco.

There’s no clear definition to “clean eating,” but there’s a fitness culture connotation. There’s a lot of denial involved, and a real hostility toward dairy and breads.

To me, True Food Kitchen, like the one in Easton, exemplifies real clean eating. The healthy, plant-centric menu is actually focussed on the pleasure of dining. My wife and I ate there this month and left feeling invigorated, rather than leaden as after a rich steak dinner.

Clean eating shouldn’t be about self-denial or torturing a chickpea into a simulacrum of a Fruit Loop.

To me, clean eating means fruits and vegetables touched only by rain and sunshine; beef from cows offered scholarships to the best schools; bacon from hogs treated to nightly massages; and cage-free potatoes raised without hormone injections.

Home gardening is one small way to participate in this movement. Not only will it teach my three kids about plants and where their food comes from, but I can also assuage some of my guilt over the alarming number of Tyson chicken nuggets with Heinz ketchup my family devours weekly.

Gahanna: Herb Capital of Ohio

No, not that kind of herb.

My new home city of Gahanna bills itself as the “Herb Capital of Ohio”

The Ohio Legislature honored Gahanna with its title in 1972, largely due to the efforts of  Jane "Bunny" Geroux, who aimed to distinguish the city from the surrounding suburban developments. The Geroux Herb Garden and the Gahanna Municipal Gardens serve as public educational resources on horticulture.

Additionally, the city has an Herbal Trail that winds through city parks, and every summer organizes an Herbal Cocktail Trail. I got my first stamp on my Cocktail Trail passport stamped at Barrel and Boar in the Creekside plaza.

As such, I set up half my containers to grow kitchen herbs. My Grandmother Nan and my younger brother grew an herb garden of perennials and annuals on the family property every year, and it’s also a nice way to remember her.

Central Ohio Kitchen Garden Set Up for Success

I picked up some high-production, low-space container gardening techniques in California. We’ll see how they translate to Ohio’s wetter climate. I also chatted with a custom AI designed on the ChatGPT platform called Urban Gardening GPT to brush up on my temperate climate knowhow.

“The Plant Library” here in Gahanna is a short walk from my home; it’s a grassroots reuse of an abandoned car wash to house art installations and a space for gardeners to leave seedlings, pots, soil, flower seeds and any other gardening supply that might be useful. This has been a great asset to the Townsend kitchen garden, and I look forward to giving back as my garden gets underway.

I’ll keep you posted throughout the growing season!

Here’s my setup along my south-facing wall:

• Fruit and Vegetables

• Strawberries (ever-bearing): Six plants in a three-gallon plastic Strawberry pot

• Bush Goliath II Tomato: One plant in a three-gallon plastic pot

• Cherokee Purple heirloom Tomato: One plant in a three-gallon plastic pot

• Tabasco Chili: One plant in a three-gallon plastic pot

• Jumbo Jalapeno Chili: One plant in a three-gallon plastic pot

• Green Onions: Nine plants in a three-gallon plastic pot

• Herbs

  • Basil and Parsley: One-gallon clay pot

  • Sage, Creeping Oregano, Lavender: Two-gallon clay pot

  • Cilantro and Chives: One-gallon plastic pot