The photos that appear in Your Small Kitchen Garden and Your Home Kitchen Garden blogs are nearly all mine. I’ve been a photographer for at least 40 years, and I love capturing images that illustrate my thoughts or that somehow entertain.

I’m excited that technology has made it easy to share my photos beyond the pages of my blogs. A website called Fine Art America lets me post images for visitors to purchase and display in their homes or businesses. You can buy prints on preservation-quality paper or stretched canvas, and even select mats and frames if you wish. There are a few images available, and I’ll add more in coming days.

Familiar Photos and Other Gems

Some photos I’m offering at Fine Art America I created specifically for my book, Yes, You Can! And Freeze and Dry It, Too. A few actually appeared in the book but we simply couldn’t make room for the others. Some of my photos on Fine Art America are about vegetable gardening, cooking, and eating. Others are about ornamental gardens and still others are about animals, landscapes, nature, and even human-made structures.

Please have a look at what’s there now, and check back from time-to-time as the images and availability change. Here’s a link to my gallery: Gasteiger’s Kitchen Garden Prints.

Let the world know where you stand on GMO.

Our shirts display calls to action for our day and plays on words for the home kitchen gardener: Guarden Against GMO and Guarden Genetic Diversity.

Whether yours is a home kitchen garden, an ornamental garden, or a wilderness landscape, you should be concerned about GMO (genetically modified organisms). Is it wise to rearrange a plant’s DNA and then release that plant into the wild?

Corn, soy beans, squash, and potatoes are among the genetically modified plants that have grown outside of laboratories. Many home kitchen gardeners recognize risk in tinkering with the genes of our food-providing plants. And, while gardeners speak out against growing GMO produce where it could cross-pollinate with natural strains, corporations continue to experiment, and our government turns a blind eye.

Another threat to our food supply, factory farming produces thousands of acres of genetically identical crops. Gardeners provide a hedge against diseases and pests that may some day decimate those crops. Growing a greater proportion of heirloom varieties, gardeners manage genetically diverse strains, some of which may one day carry us in the event of catastrophic crop failures.

Guarden Genetic Diversity by cityslipper
See other Garden T-Shirts

Represent your concern with one of these eye-catching shirts. These are great conversation starters: When people ask the meaning of GMO, you can tell them and encourage them to learn more about the risks… or explain the importance of genetic diversity in this era of factory farming.

Click here to visit our Zazzle store and buy your guardening shirt today.

Technorati Tags: clothes, genetically modified organisms, gmo, tee shirt

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally posted new creations on the Yard Bird page. The Yard Bird sculptor has been busy. He has assembled shovels rakes and other garden tools into bird sculptures of many shapes and sizes.

It’s impossible to resist those adoring eyes when your Yard Bird snuggles up to you. Yard Birds have amazing charm.

When I visited, the artist had set out 25 new critters, and I photographed all of them. So far, I’ve added 13 of the new birds to the page, and I’ll add more in the coming week or so.

You’ll find Yard Birds with sad expressions, others looking happy, and still others showing wide-eyed wonder. Each will add a unique accent to any yard or garden.

This recent crop of sculptures includes garden shovels, snow shovels, leaf rakes, hand trowels, and cultivators. The whimsical lawn and garden sculptures represent birds both domestic and wild… and I’ve taken pains not to assign names that might bias you too much should you decide to take one home: you ought to be able to name your own garden sculptures.

Visit the Yard Birds page and see what’s new: Click here to VISIT NOW!

Here at the Home Kitchen Garden StoreI’m a bit slow on the uptake, but I don’t think it’s too late to say: Congratulations! Congratulations to my on-line gardening acquaintances who have recently published books.

I interact from time-to-time with all four authors of this book. You can own a copy of the book and get to know the authors as well.

Jean Ann Van Krevelen, who goes by @JeanAnnVK on Twitter, is one of the first gardening enthusiasts I met online when I started blogging. She recruited three other garden bloggers: Amanda Thomsen, Robin Ripley, and Theresa O’Connor (@kissmyaster, @robinripley, and @seasonalwisdom, respectively) and together they produced the book Grocery Gardening.

Gayla Trail, the author of the successful gardening book You Grow Girl, goes by the name @YouGrowGirl on Twitter. She recently published her second book, Grow Great Grub.

Reviews of both books have been very positive. Now, here’s the trick: for the history of publishing, it has been uncommon to meet or interact with the authors whose books you read. The emergence of social media has changed the game. Now you can buy these great books about gardening AND you can follow the authors on Twitter. You can also follow the authors’ blogs!

Gayla Trail’s second book is about growing food organically. Read it and also get to know Gayla through online social networking.

Please do it. Grocery Gardening and Grow Great Grub are attractive books that offer a lot of information for beginning and experienced gardeners. Buy them, read them, and get to know their authors through Twitter and their other online activities (Jean Ann and Amanda do a podcast called Good Enough Gardening, for example). It’s a unique experience, and you’re not likely to be disappointed.

Click the image of either book to order copies from Amazon.com or find the title on the carousel below and click to order (you can order any other books on the carousel as well). If you order, please do so from this page as I’ll earn a small commission on each book purchased through these links. Thank you for your consideration.

Technorati Tags: authors, books, garden book

I got a little silly in December and designed a coffee mug that expresses an off-color play-on-words. The design is gardening-related, and came to mind, I’m sure, because I planted pear trees in my home kitchen garden in Autumn of 2008 and enjoyed watching them grow in 2009.

Of course, when I published the mug’s design on Zazzle.com, Zazzle suggested several similar products that might also interest me… all designed around the same play-on-words. The lesson? You don’t need a particularly great mind to think alike.

That said, here’s what I designed. I hope you like it enough to buy one for yourself… or to buy as a gag gift for a gardening friend. If just 50,000 people buy this mug in the next 365 days, my wife might forgive me for having designed it in the first place.

Technorati Tags: coffe mug, gift, pears

Some people will stop at nothing to install a home kitchen garden. I hope you don’t have to dig in the floor of your cell to plant vegetables… but I’d understand the urge if it was your only reasonable option.

That said, I write a lot about gardening in small spaces. Many kitchen gardeners have no more than a windowsill or a clear spot on a counter in which to grow produce. Other gardeners find space on balconies, patios, porches, and decks to hold planters for herbs, greens, and, perhaps, more ambitious vegetables and fruits.

In acknowledgement of these determined gardeners, I’ve added links to the container-gardening sections of several on-line gardening stores. In the left margin of the page, look for the section titled, Planters. The six links in that section lead to plenty of planters. Find planters to match any decour in nearly every price range. Please have a look; you’re bound to find just the right container in which to grow your kitchen goodies.

Emphasizing Yard Birds

Yard birds are the coolest gardening-related objects d’arte I’ve ever seen. These clever creations are sculptures assembled from pieces of garden tools, farm machinery, and steel re-bar. The artist of the original Yard Bird lives in my home town, and has agreed to let me sell his creations on-line.

This web site features the Yard Birds store, but if you arrived on the site’s home page, you might easily overlook the link. So… I’ve added a photograph of a yard bird in the left margin of the site along with links to the Yard Birds page. Browse the selection and add a little whimsy to your garden.

If you like the Yard Bird stylings, but don’t see one that fits your decour, check back from time-to-time. I’ll add more designs as the artist produces them.

Technorati Tags: container garden, container gardening, containters, yard birds

It dawned on me this morning as I thought about the Home Kitchen Garden Store web site, that another blog I manage grew directly out of my interest in gardening. That blog, Food Dryer Home, is about preserving fruits, vegetables, and meats through dehydration.

My home kitchen garden always produces a bit more food than my family can consume during the growing season. Some of that food – tomatoes, for example – I can in glass jars. Other items I blanch and freeze. This year, I’ve realize a third option: my toaster oven has a Dehydrate setting and can dry two racks full of food at a time. I plan to dry some winter squash which I understand rehydrates nicely in soup.

In any case, a food dryer is a terrific accompaniment to a home kitchen garden. Use a food dryer to dry herbs for your spice rack. Use a food dryer to make nutritious dried fruit snacks. Use a food dryer to make delicious, preservative-free fruit rollups. Use a food dryer to dehydrate surplus vegetables so you can store them to use during the off season.

I built an aStore for visitors to my Food Dryer Home blog, and I’ve added a link to that aStore in the left margin of this page. Please visit for the best-rated dehydrators and accessories available through Amazon.com.

Technorati Tags: dehydrator, food dehydrator, food dryer

I try to make it easy for readers of my gardening blogs to find gear, books, or other products relevant to the topics in a post. To that end, I’ve created two a-stores. You can build such stores using tools available at Amazon.com. It’s nearly as simple as choosing which products you’d like to have in your store; Amazon’s software organizes the products and handles transactions. When you shop in an a-store, you’re buying either directly from Amazon.com, or from one of the many vendors who sell through Amazon.com.

Of course, you can shop directly on Amazon’s web site and you’ll find a lot more products from which to choose. The advantage of shopping at my a-stores is that I’ve already waded through hundreds of products to produce short-lists of well-regarded items. Generally, I’ve included products with only the highest customer ratings and the best customer comments. Included products having inferior reviews, are usually less expensive or the best in their price ranges.

My Small Kitchen Garden a-store focuses primarily on products that gardeners use: books, tools, planters, and gifts for gardeners. My Home Kitchen Garden a-store places heavy emphasis on food-preservation. There you’ll find canning supplies alongside rain barrels as well as books about canning and beekeeping.

I update the a-stores from time-to-time, and will expand their offerings in the coming months. As I said: I tend to add products related to topics in my blogs. If you follow Your Small Kitchen Garden blog or Your Home Kitchen Garden blog, you’ll catch notices of additions embeded in upcoming posts.

Technorati Tags: canning, canning supplies, home kitchen garden, planters, small kitchen garden, tools

Welcome to the Home Kitchen Garden Store. This site is about shopping. Here you’ll find pages dedicated to specific products unique to the Your Home Kitchen Garden and Your Small Kitchen Garden blogs written by Daniel Gasteiger the original Cityslipper. You’ll also find links to on-line garden stores, nurseries, and other resources for gardeners.

Over time, I’ll consolidate and categorize shopping sites I find in the on-line gardening world.

Please let me know when you find the Home Kitchen Garden Store useful, or when you find it lacking (but bear with me; it’ll take some time to build up the references and links). I’ll try to track down sources for things you’re having trouble finding. Also, share your preferences with the on-line gardening community: if there is a product or service that you value but that you can’t find here, post the link and I’ll add it to the site.

Thanks for visiting!