Meet A Nashville-Based Culinary Garden Designer Who Can Grow Food Anywhere

Sara Gasbarra is a Chicago native and founder of Verdura, a culinary garden design service. With her help, home cooks and head restaurant chefs can access fresh ingredients they grew themselves.

Sara's love of gardening comes from a childhood spent with her father in his vegetable garden. That plant prowess and her ability to cook instilled a love of cooking with what she grew herself. As an adult, she always managed to convince her landlords to let her plant a garden on whatever green space was available. She kept a garden in pots on the porch if no yard was available.

The inspiration to turn gardening into a career came from watching the landscaping crews make improvements along Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Sara knew then that she wanted to spend her days outside, too.

Sara began volunteering at a Chicago farmers market to spend more time outside. She eventually became the market's project manager at the same time Instagram was becoming popular. She found herself taking photos of the vegetables and herbs at the market.

The market was a favorite shopping spot for Chicago's top chefs, and as they met Sara and came to understand her skill set, they asked her to create culinary gardens for their restaurants.

Sara carefully sources her plants and works with plant nurseries and farms that do their own propagation. She loves unusual tomatoes, uncommon eggplants, and plants that aren't generally found in stores.

While she loves unusual plants, she still loves to grow herbs and cruciferous vegetables like radishes and arugula. "Arugula that you grow in your garden tastes so much different than the stuff that you buy in the clamshell in the grocery store," she explains.

Sara eventually moved to Nashville, where she planned to continue working with chefs and restaurants in Chicago as well as in Music City, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused her work to dry up. She didn't work for about a year, but a new plan soon sprouted, and she began building culinary gardens for residential clients.

The garden of one of her clients, Nashville realtor and House on a Nashville Hill influencer Kelly Ladwig, has nine raised beds that surround a center greenhouse. Sara planted herbs near the front of the garden to make them easier to access since they are used so much in cooking.

One of the beds has basil, chard, lavender and a few carrots. Another is home to lavender oregano, chives, green fennel and rosemary.

Each of the beds includes flowers to attract bees and add aesthetically pleasing pops of color. Sara says it's important to have pollinator-friendly flowers to make sure that the bees and wasps can pollinate the squash, tomatoes, eggplants and cucumbers.

Sara loves this garden design because it's a veggie garden as well as a living and entertaining area where her clients can coexist with their plants. The greenhouse functions as an outdoor living room in the cooler months, and a planned fire pit will make for a uniquely useful entertaining space.

Back at Sara's house, her culinary garden is housed in planters on her rooftop patio. Gardens are an extension of living space, according to Sara, so there is space to sit and cook, as well as plenty of plants on her roof.

When Sara entertains, she sometimes invites friends to make drinks and then pick their own aromatics and herbs to pair with their cocktails. The edible nature of the garden allows Sara and her guests to fully immerse themselves in the experience.

Sara has some advice for you if you want to start your own culinary garden, even if all you have is a small balcony or a bit of roof space: First, focus on aromatics or high-producing plants like a cherry tomato plant. Second, set aside a corner where you can have a place to sit and enjoy the plants. Spend time in the garden at all times of the day. "The garden in the morning is so different from the garden in the evening," Sara explains.