Kimberly Fox Of Market to Table: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To Grow Your Own Food
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Make the biggest impact. I recommend asking yourself, what vegetables am I always buying? Evaluate what kinds of vegetables you and your family eat the most of and make those your highest priority. For me, carrots and tomatoes take up a large part of my garden because that’s what we eat the most.
As we all know, inflation has really increased the price of food. Many people have turned to home gardening to grow their own food. Many have tried this and have been really successful. But others struggle to produce food in their own garden. What do you need to know to create a successful vegetable garden to grow your own food? In this interview series, called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To Grow Your Own Food” we are talking to experts in vegetable gardening who can share stories and insights from their experiences.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Kimberly Fox.
Kimberly Fox leads corporate cooking classes and is a recipe developer and writer for her food blog, From Market to Table. As a self-taught cook and gardener, she has been cooking and canning her way through farmer’s market produce and her backyard garden for the past 9 years. Formally trained as a Food Scientist, she bridges the gap between food sourcing and quality and well-tested recipes. Kimberly holds an M.S. degree in Food Science from University of Minnesota and lives in Minnesota with her mini-Goldendoodle, Ivy.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”?
I’d be happy to. For far too long, I poured over cookbooks and put my unique spin on sweet and savory dishes. It was a hobby of sorts that evolved into a full-blown obsession.
I began visiting the farmers’ market weekly and enjoyed learning about the elemental pleasures of cooking with the seasons. Over time, the farmers became a part of my extended family. I not only learned about their farming practices and how they cook at home but about their families, traditions, and personal struggles and triumphs. Eventually, I started a vegetable garden and learned about the trials and tribulations of growing my own food. Food became more than something I just ate; it was a way I could understand and connect with those around me.
I leveraged my love for food and analytical chemistry background by going back to school and earning an M.S. degree in Food Science. It was here where I honed the unique perspective I bring to the table (no pun intended). I look at food through the lenses of sourcing, safety, quality, and flavor. It is a different vantage point; one I embrace in all its glory.
Today, I am an avid gardener and am obsessed with helping people cook from home with fresh and local ingredients and actually liking it.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
One story that stands out to me most was when I moved to Northern Ireland to work at the Institute for Global Food Security. I completed graduate school for Food Science in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the job market was competitive. A professor I met in graduate school offered me an opportunity to work with him and his team. The next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland, I got culture shock. I arrived and only understood 30% of what people were saying despite speaking English. Their jargon is different compared to the U.S. Crossing the street was even a challenge since they don’t have stop signs or ‘right of way’ for pedestrians. I didn’t take a hot shower for three months until an American explained how to use the shower knob. These are all things I took for granted in the U.S., and I gained a new perspective on being an outsider in a new country. The people in Northern Ireland are so incredibly kind that we laughed together at my struggles, and they helped me along the way.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Persistence: I am the quintessential underdog. I have failed and heard ‘no,’ so many times, and I continually remind myself that ‘no,’ is redirection and failure shows me something that does not work. After every disappointment, I jump back in and try again until I succeed. I will not give up.
Learning Agility: I have the innate ability to take new learnings and experiences and apply them to new situations to continually grow and succeed in the next challenge I encounter. I believe in the notion that “I always figure it out” because I always have, even if the result wasn’t what was initially planned or expected. This is how I learned how to garden!
Curiosity: This is a trait that I learned later in life and has served me well. Before skipping to conclusions, I learned the value of pausing and asking for more information. By doing this, I better understand different perspectives, experiences, and points of view and consider these when making decisions or recommendations. Gaining new perspectives is invaluable and practicing curiosity makes me a better leader.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My favorite life quote comes from the paragraph from Teddy Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic” Speech:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Before I began my career in food, I imagined what my life might become if I was brave enough to travel down a different path and courageous enough to pursue the life and career I wanted. I surrendered to uncertainty, financial risk, and fear of failure. It is easier to stay on the sidelines, never risk anything, and judge everyone in the arena struggling. This quote reminds me there is no glory in easy and comfortable and to keep getting in the arena.
Are you working on any interesting or exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Yes! I began leading Corporate Cooking experiences after working 10+ years in STEM and experiencing the gender inequities and micro-cultures that exist within companies and organizations. I passionately believe companies and organizations want more women in STEM and need to create a culture in which women want to stay and be a part of. Now, I leverage my understanding of the STEM culture and well-tested recipes to help leaders build stronger teams and close the gender gap.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about creating a successful garden to grow your own food. Can you help articulate a few reasons why people should be interested in making their own vegetable garden? For example, how is it better for our health? For the environment? For our wallet?
Growing your own food allows you to know exactly where your food comes from and have control over the quality and taste. I began gardening because I focus on eating food that is not sprayed with pesticides and wanted to curb my grocery budget. There were some years that I put more money into my garden than I got out of it, mostly because I was too ambitious, received poor advice, and was not realistic about the amount of time gardening takes. While it is a lot of work, I love being able to pick vegetables straight from my backyard and being connected to the gardeners and farmers in my community. I feel a deep connection to where my food comes from, and there is nothing better than tasting a just-picked summer tomato I grew myself.
Where should someone start if they would like to start a garden? Which resources would you recommend? Which plants should they start with?
When starting a garden, I recommend asking yourself, what is my end goal? Is it to supplement your grocery budget? OR do you want extra produce to can and preserve for the out-of-season months? These questions help you determine how big of a space you need for your garden, your time requirements, and start to develop a gardening plan.
Resources are invaluable; I am not talking about books here. While gardening books are helpful, they are often overwhelming and provide too many ideas. Some ideas may not even work for your climate. I recommend getting to know your local farmers at the Farmers’ Market and neighbors who also garden. They have experience growing vegetables in your area and know what works and does not.
I recommend buying your starter plants from a local farmers market. These plants are the same plants farmers are growing on their own farms, and their livelihood depends on growing and selling them. They pick the varieties that perform the best in your climate, hands down. Additionally, they are an excellent resource when a plant gets a disease or is not growing well. For example, my tomatoes were getting black spots on the bottom. I went to the farmer I bought my plants from, and he told me it has a calcium deficiency and to crush up eggshells and spread them around each plant. Boom, problem solved!
Can you please share your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden To Grow Your Own Food”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
- Keep it Simple. I cannot emphasize this enough. The gardening books have tons of ideas on how to get the highest yield, and it is best to weigh how much time and effort it will take to get a 10% higher crop yield. For instance, I read that tomato cages are not ideal for training tomatoes, so I tried different techniques to train tomatoes for years. After many failures and frustrations, I tried heavy tomato cages and got an abundance of tomatoes without the headache. One year, I began designing a complex irrigation system so that I did not have to spend time watering the garden. As I got deeper into this project, I realized how complicated I was making watering my garden, and it is best to stick with the old-fashioned way of using a watering can or hose.
- Location matters. There are many variables that make a successful garden, and soil, sunlight, water, and convenience are all top of mind. Try and pick a sunny spot with water access that you see every day to remind you to take care of it. It also keeps you inspired once the vegetable plants start producing! My first-year gardening, I rented a gardening plot 3 miles away from where I lived. It did not have access to water, so I lugged 5-gallon containers full of water to the garden site to water my garden. I struggled to keep up with the watering and weeds since out-of-sight, out-of-mind came to fruition. Lesson learned.
- Make the biggest impact. I recommend asking yourself, what vegetables am I always buying? Evaluate what kinds of vegetables you and your family eat the most of and make those your highest priority. For me, carrots and tomatoes take up a large part of my garden because that’s what we eat the most.
- Plant different varieties. I liken this to having an insurance policy for your garden. Some plant varieties will do great in your garden, and some will not based on your soil conditions and sunlight. Unfortunately, you do not know what plant varieties will do the best until you try them. Thus, I recommend trying 2–3 different plant varieties of each vegetable you grow. Remember to write down where you plant each variety and record what plants produced the best results for next year. For example, I learned New Girl and Big Boy tomato varieties do excellent in my garden. I also plant a new variety yearly to see how it does. Even if the plant variety I tried does not do well, I still have the tomato plants I know produce excellent results.
- Be realistic. Gardens always take more time than expected. Before you begin, evaluate how many hours per week you must garden and ask yourself if you will genuinely enjoy it. I suggest starting small and testing it out first. It is surprising how a small garden can really make a difference in your budget! In harvest season, my over-ambitiousness always comes to life as I scramble to pick and preserve all my bounty. I failed dismally at keeping up with my garden when I left halfway through harvest season for Northern Ireland and pleaded with my friends and neighbors to pick whatever they desire. It happens to the best of us, and gardening is all about learning from our mistakes and moving forward.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a garden? What specifically can be done to avoid those errors?
The most common mistake I see is planting too much and not being able to keep up with the bounty in harvesting season. Here in the Midwest, all the vegetables seem to come at once. It is common for people to stay up until midnight or the wee hours of the morning trying to preserve all their fruits and vegetables. This notion goes back to garden goals and being realistic about how much time you must give to it.
Another common mistake I see is trying to be 100% sustainable. I think sustainability is top of mind for a lot of us these days and we are all trying to take care of our planet. Some unsustainable materials, such as high-quality landscape fabric, are worth investing in to save you time, produce more food, and not make you think I’m never gardening again. I used hay for mulching my first year, and I am allergic to mold, so you can imagine how this turned out! It was an itchy and sneezy disaster. I thought organic farmers used natural sources for mulching, and when I visited a local organic strawberry farm, they used black plastic to keep the soil warm and control the weeds. After I saw that, I realized that it is OK not to be 100% sustainable all the time and how valuable it is to see what local farmers are doing to produce the highest quality crops without using pesticides.
What are some of the best ways to keep the costs of gardening down?
Evaluate what you have first! One of the best and most inexpensive gardens I had come out of a deserted dirt pile in my backyard. It was an eyesore that happened to be in full sun all day. I ordered a dog fence from Amazon to use as a garden fence and borrowed a small tiller from a neighbor. It was the fastest, easiest, and most productive garden. Keep it simple!
If you do not have a lot of space, you can buy some untreated pine boards and screw them together to make a 10’ x 4’ raised bed. This method will require you to fill the inside with dirt opposed to planting the vegetables directly in the ground, so there is an extra cost. Another alternative is planting vegetables in-between non-vegetable plants you already have in your yard.
Another way to keep gardening costs down is to buy seeds instead of plants for the vegetable plants that do not need to be started indoors, such as carrots, zucchini, beans, and cucumbers. Rather than looking at a seed catalog that can quickly become overwhelming, I recommend asking your local farmers or gardeners what varieties they love and are easy to grow.
Lastly, grow the vegetables that give you the biggest bang for your buck and that you love to eat. Summer tomatoes are one the most expensive commodities where I live and my favorite, so I make sure to allocate a large portion of my garden to growing my own. In comparison, I do not love green beans, so I stick with one bean plant that provides me enough to satisfy me when I want to try or test a new recipe.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to see everyone invest in their health through food and cook at home with fresh and local ingredients. This is harder now than ever, with grocery prices continuing to rise. I see people who do not invest in nutritious and wholesome food choices until they start experiencing health symptoms or are experiencing food insecurity and make unhealthy food choices to save money.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
One of my favorite cookbook authors and writers is David Lebovitz. I am always excited to see what he brings home from the farmers’ market on Instagram, his recipes are always spot-on, and I admire his authenticity and honesty.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow me on my website, From Market to Table, at https://frommarkettotable.com. Once you’re there, be sure to get my free guide on how to buy and store fruits and vegetables.
Thank you so much for the time you spent on this interview. We wish you only continued success and good health.
Thank you, you as well!
Kimberly Fox Of Market to Table: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create A Successful Vegetable Garden… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.