A Lesson in Gardening

 From Southern Living:

Dominique Charles knows her way around the garden. The founder of Plots & Pans is known as a garden expert, garden consultant, and even chief executive gardener, but she can't have her hands in the dirt without thinking of her grandmother, who she called by one title: Maw Maw. 

"I think the biggest lesson she taught me about gardening would be to grow what you love or will actually use," says Charles. For her grandmother, that meant lots of okra and tomatoes. "She canned jars and jars of them at the end of the season," she says. "My mom used those jars of okra and tomatoes as an essential element in her gumbo." Charles stands firm in her belief that her mama's gumbo rivaled just about any other version out there, and she thinks it was the okra and tomatoes that were to thank. (Read more.)