The Garden Chef

The Garden Chef Fully customized Gardening & Chef Services in Kalamazoo. Sliding-Scale Fees. We aim to:

Nurture beautiful, edible, ecological landscapes to fruition.

Mission: We strive to cultivate resilience, vitality, and empowerment in our shared communities. Craft nutrient-dense meals for healing and enjoyment. Share knowledge, research, and stories of transformation and hope.
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Please note that the array of services currently available, is limited due to concerns for community health during this time:

Phone and Text consultations are always available

. Initial consult is always free, and

ongoing remote consult appointments for all your kitchen and garden questions are available. Some small-scale gardening and landscape services may be available as well, depending on circumstances and availability. Don't be shy in contacting us to see if we can help you achieve your dreams in landscaping or cooking!

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Out of an abundance of caution, all food-handling services and in-home personal chef services are currently suspended. We do expect this to be temporary. We do have virtual one-on-one classes in the works. Please stay tuned on that.

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We provide a wide variety of services, each tailored to meet your needs and budget, such as:

Home or Small Business Garden Planning, Consulting, Installation, and Maintenance

Edible Landscapes

Container Gardening

Garden "Troubleshooting"

Routine Yard Maintenance

Yard Composting

Vermiculture (Redworm Composting)

Bee, Bird, and Pollinator-Friendly Landscapes

One-on-One Garden Education

In-home Food Prep, Cooking and Clean Up

Grocery Shopping

Meal Planning

Pack Lunches

Homemade Snacks, Granolas, and Frozen Treats

Baking

Small Parties

Gift Baskets

Holiday Meals & Baking

Holiday Prep

Special Occasions

Cooking Classes

Weekend Brunch Packages

Garden Parties

Your phone consult is free! Call today and see how we can help meet your needs and give you more free time to do the things you really love! About The Garden Chef:
Annalisa is a chef with 29 years of home cooking experience, 17 years of hospitality/food service industry experience, and has been Serve-Safe certified multiple times. She will tailor menus and services to each client according to preferences, allergies, and dietary needs. Chef has the abilities to work with a wide variety of cuisines from around the world. Many special diets can be happily accommodated, including but not limited to: Vegetarian & Vegan, Vegetarian & Vegan, Low Salt, Low/Healthy Fat, Low Sugar, Whole Grains, Gluten or other allergen sensitivities, and more. She has a special interest in supporting local businesses and sustainable agriculture, sharing the healing potential of nature, and fighting stigmas around poverty and food insecurity.

LOL who can relate?
07/09/2025

LOL who can relate?

This is a very powerful reminder about how the appearances of our gardens and green spaces will always shift through cyc...
04/05/2025

This is a very powerful reminder about how the appearances of our gardens and green spaces will always shift through cycles of change. Embracing this fact is key.

09/07/2024
07/10/2024
05/11/2024

Greetings dear Kalamazoo! While this page has been somewhat inactive, it still gets visitors, and I intend to pivot it as The Garden Chef changes. At this time, on-site Garden Services are referral-based, and limited to within city limits. This includes things like garden installation, watering, and maintenance.

Garden Consulting is available to everyone! This includes things like answering your questions, offering guidance based on your specific goals or challenges, education about gardening and earth-friendly, ecological gardening choices, and trouble-shooting pests or other issues. Chef consulting is included, such as helping you learn how to prepare and preserve tasty dishes from your garden or yard. These consultations may be over the phone or zoom. They are often supported by additional educational material, like reading suggestions, resources, and links to visual references. There are no silly questions! I'm happy to help you! And I love to talk about these topics!

Please feel free to reach out in DM's if you are interested in gardening and landscaping services or consulting. Especially if we know each other already, or you know someone I have worked with in the past!

On the "chef" side of things, I am working on a cookbook, and am considering starting a membership-based service where people pay tiered monthly rates in exchange for access to recipes, 1:1 classes, and consulting.

I'm not certain which platform I may use for this. I am familiar with Patreon, and other people have suggested platforms like Ko-Fi. If you have suggestions or advice, I welcome it.

I briefly considered starting a chef insta - but doubt my ability to match the quantity and consistency expectations of the algorithms these days.

I'm trying to lean away from solely existing on social media - with the way things are going with paid reach, censorship, and s c a m m y bot type fishy nonsense, it just doesn't make sense anymore to cling to socials.

I welcome your feedback, thoughts, suggestions, or questions! I hope you all are well and enjoying the beautiful delights that Spring has been offering us. Talk to you soon.

-AB

03/04/2021

Recently we saw a lot of snow which was a delight to snowmobilers. Snowmobile trail systems utilize the back acres of many area farms, and the farmers are required to signoff or 'ok' the trail crossing their property. Many may think it's because of liability or just that some farmers don't care for snowmobiles, but part of the hesitation for some farmers comes from the concern for their crops.

Some farmers plant winter wheat; this crop lies dormant under the snow but continues to breathe and live under the snow. If something, like a rogue snowmobile, were to ride over this living plant and pack the snow tightly around the plant, it would basically choke the plant to death.

So, when a land owner allows a trail to cross their property, the trail may be designated to avoid the fragile crops, or if a farmer doesn't allow the trail, it may be because of the crops' needs. By keeping to the trail, snowmobilers can demonstrate that they will be respectful trail users and can be trusted by the farmer to not destroy crops, which in turn benefits everyone.

Address

Kalamazoo, MI

Telephone

(269) 348-6428

Website

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