Home Grown: A Growing Guide for Creating a Cooks Garden

Swap the annuals for edibles, creating attractive beds and containers that both beautify the yard and provide a bounty of fresh produce


As a trained chef-turned-professional kitchen garden designer, Marta Teegen knows what a difference freshly harvested vegetables can make to a meal—and how easy it is to ensure seasonal vegetables are always available when you need them. She touts the joys creating front yard–friendly raised beds and container gardens that take up only a small amount of space and look beautiful to boot, and shares ideas for tucking productive gardens in other small nooks and corners.


Teegen's unique cuisine-based planting methods mean herbs, vegetables, and edible flowers grow next to each other in comingled plots—quickly, reliably, and efficiently. You'll find more than 40 top picks for small-space vegetables that yield big and are trouble-free, plus a variety of menus and 50 recipes for fresh and delicious summer dishes.


With food prices on the rise and concern over pesticide residues on produce ever present, the number of home owners growing vegetables nearly doubled in the last year. Homegrown shows that even urban and suburban dwellers can grow their own vegetables in easy-to-tend plots and spaces.

MARTA TEEGEN is a trained master gardener and chef. She worked in politics and the nonprofi t sector before pursuing her lifelong love of gardening and cooking. She lives in Los Angeles.