Katie Oglesby

Katie Oglesby We design thriving organic kitchen gardens that change the way people eat + live + feel: people like you.

We'll deepen your connection with food, uncover the abundance of your landscape, and teach you how to nurture the garden-to-table way of living.

It’s brassica season, baby. 🥦Old-school gardening advice might have you thinking it’s time to pack things up after Labor...
09/09/2026

It’s brassica season, baby. 🥦

Old-school gardening advice might have you thinking it’s time to pack things up after Labor Day, but succession gardeners know the cool-season garden is just getting started.

Right now, we’re planting brassica seedlings like broccoli and cauliflower, along with lettuces and other quick-growing cool-season crops. Meanwhile, kale, Brussels sprouts, and plenty of our existing plantings are still growing strong.

And we’re not fighting the season to make it happen. A lot of these crops actually prefer the cooler temperatures of fall.

For fall brassicas, I look for shorter-day varieties that have enough time to mature before our season really winds down. I’m also watching how the sun moves through the garden this time of year. The days are getting shorter and the angle of the sun is changing, so a spot that had plenty of light in July might be a different story by October.

And if you want to get really serious about extending the season, cold frames, hoops, and other season extenders can keep things going even longer.

Here in Wisconsin, we’re often harvesting well into November.

So no, I’m not putting the garden to bed yet. I’m planting cauliflower. 😉

📸 Sonya K | Founder + Creative Director

The first cool nights of September always make me start craving a crisp apple or pear.Luckily, we grow both right here a...
09/07/2026

The first cool nights of September always make me start craving a crisp apple or pear.

Luckily, we grow both right here at Oglesby Gardens, along with peaches and cherries. 🍎🍐

One of the things I love about growing fruit trees is that you don’t necessarily need a traditional orchard to do it.

We have areas where crops are planted in rows, but we’ve also incorporated fruit trees throughout the property in a looser, meadow-style landscape. Both produce food. They just serve the property differently.

That’s something we think about when designing edible landscapes for our clients, too. A few fruit trees can become a small backyard orchard, line the edge of a property, mix into an existing landscape, or become part of a larger kitchen garden plan.

And September is a great time to think about planting. Getting fruit trees in this fall gives them time to begin establishing their roots before winter and puts you one season closer to picking your own fruit.

Thinking about adding a mini orchard or other edible landscaping to your property? Link in bio to schedule a consult - let’s talk about what could work in your space.

Photos Sonya K | Founder + Creative Director

If you’re going to grow 320 square feet of vegetables, you might as well make it gorgeous.Four L-shaped beds made from 4...
09/04/2026

If you’re going to grow 320 square feet of vegetables, you might as well make it gorgeous.

Four L-shaped beds made from 4-inch-thick cedar. Bright white limestone underfoot. Farmhouse arches and custom trellises covered in climbing crops. Flowers woven throughout the vegetables. And built-in lighting beneath the beds that gives the entire garden a warm glow after sunset.

Then summer gets ahold of it.

Vines climb the obelisks. Tomatoes cover the arches. Flowers spill over the beds. Vegetables and herbs fill every available inch.

The Half Moon Garden is one of my favorite examples of how much beauty and food can come from the exact same square footage.

This garden was built for a family planning to spend years growing here, and I have a feeling 320 square feet is going to hold a lot of good summers.

Which detail would you steal for your own garden?

Photography by Sonya K | Founder + Creative Director Jessica Licht

The beans are telling us it’s time to move on. 🫘By early September, both our green beans and shelling beans are starting...
09/03/2026

The beans are telling us it’s time to move on. 🫘

By early September, both our green beans and shelling beans are starting to wrap up. Once they’ve stopped flowering and given us their final harvest, we’ll pull them and put that valuable garden space right back to work with something for fall.

This year I grew Jade, Rocdor, Flambo, and a new one for me: Beefy Black beans from Row 7 Seed Company

Bean growers: which variety earned a spot in your garden again next year? I’m always looking for another one to try.

📸 Sonya K | Brand Identity + Creative Direction

✨ August really knows how to show off. I can barely see my kitchen table underneath the harvest.If you could only grow O...
08/30/2026

✨ August really knows how to show off. I can barely see my kitchen table underneath the harvest.

If you could only grow ONE warm season crop, what’s making the cut?

📸 Sonya K | Brand Identity + Creative Direction

There comes a point every August when you’ve eaten the tomatoes, given away the tomatoes, canned the tomatoes... and the...
08/29/2026

There comes a point every August when you’ve eaten the tomatoes, given away the tomatoes, canned the tomatoes... and there are still tomatoes. 🍅

So here’s another one for the preservation list: tomato powder.

Dehydrating tomatoes concentrates all that peak-summer flavor into a powder you can keep on hand for soups, pasta sauces, dressings, dry rubs, eggs, roasted vegetables, dips, salsa - basically anywhere that could use a punch of flavor.

HOW TO MAKE TOMATO POWDER

Rinse and dry your tomatoes, then slice them approximately ½” thick. No need to peel, deseed, or core them. Use a mix of varieties if you have them.
Arrange the slices in a single layer on dehydrator trays.
Dehydrate at 130–135°F for at least 8 hours. Timing will vary depending on the tomatoes, so start checking around 8 hours. They’re ready when they’re completely crisp with no pliability.
Once completely dry, grind in a blender or food processor for about 30 seconds at a time, allowing the machine to cool between rounds, until you have a fine powder.
Optional: add ¼ tsp salt for every 5 tomatoes while grinding to help the powder last longer.
You can even reconstitute it with equal parts water to make tomato paste.

📸 Sonya K | Brand Identity + Creative Direction

Save this one for the next round of tomatoes coming out of the garden.

There comes a point every August when you’ve eaten the tomatoes, given away the tomatoes, canned the tomatoes... and the...
08/29/2026

There comes a point every August when you’ve eaten the tomatoes, given away the tomatoes, canned the tomatoes... and there are still tomatoes. 🍅

So here’s another one for the preservation list: tomato powder.

Dehydrating tomatoes concentrates all that peak-summer flavor into a powder you can keep on hand for soups, pasta sauces, dressings, dry rubs, eggs, roasted vegetables, dips, salsa - basically anywhere that could use a punch of flavor.

HOW TO MAKE TOMATO POWDER

Rinse and dry your tomatoes, then slice them approximately ½” thick. No need to peel, deseed, or core them. Use a mix of varieties if you have them.
Arrange the slices in a single layer on dehydrator trays.
Dehydrate at 130–135°F for at least 8 hours. Timing will vary depending on the tomatoes, so start checking around 8 hours. They’re ready when they’re completely crisp with no pliability.
Once completely dry, grind in a blender or food processor for about 30 seconds at a time, allowing the machine to cool between rounds, until you have a fine powder.
Optional: add ¼ tsp salt for every 5 tomatoes while grinding to help the powder last longer.
You can even reconstitute it with equal parts water to make tomato paste.

Save this one for the next round of tomatoes coming out of the garden.

📸 Sonya K | Brand Identity + Creative Direction

Some vegetables earn their place in the garden twice. Malabar spinach is one of them. It loves the summer heat when many...
08/28/2026

Some vegetables earn their place in the garden twice.

Malabar spinach is one of them. It loves the summer heat when many of our usual greens are struggling, and it might be one of the prettiest crops we grow vertically.

The vines have this gorgeous reddish color against big, green leaves, and by late summer they’ve worked their way up and around the trellis until the whole thing becomes a living piece of the garden.

That’s one of the things I think about when choosing what grows vertically. A trellis can produce a surprising amount of food in a small footprint, but the crop growing on it also becomes part of the garden’s design.

If you’re running out of greens in the August heat, put Malabar spinach on your list for next year.

📸 Sonya K | Brand Identity + Creative Direction

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