Helping you grow food with more confidence, less overwhelm, and a whole lot more connection.
From Corporate to Carrots
The Gardens at SmallMeadow exists for curious beginners, backyard gardeners, balcony growers, and food lovers who want practical guidance for growing and preserving their own food.
Maybe you’ve tried growing food before and ended up spending more time, money, and energy than expected. Maybe you’re starting from scratch and have no idea what your space can actually support. Either way, you don’t need to figure it all out alone.
I’m Patti Kirkey — former owner and operator of the award-winning bakery Le Chat Noir, decades-long corporate project manager, gardener, designer, vintage lover, and firm believer that a little organized chaos can be a very good thing.
I live on a typical suburban lot just five miles outside the heart of Fort Worth, Texas, with my best-friend-turned-fiancé of 23 years and our two fur children. Nothing about my space is some sprawling countryside fantasy. It’s a real suburban home, with real limitations, real experiments, and a whole lot of lessons learned the hard way.
A former project manager, award-winning baker, gardener, designer, and vintage lover who took the long way back to the dirt.
Meet Patti
The Wake-Up Call - The more unstable the world felt, the more important growing food became.
The pandemic, rising food costs, and the Texas grid failure made one thing clear: we are more dependent on commercial food systems than most of us realize. After more than 25 years in corporate project management, I felt pulled back to something more grounded — growing food, preserving what I harvested, and teaching others how to do the same.
In 2025, I left corporate life and officially turned The Gardens at SmallMeadow into a business built around food, self-sufficiency, and practical education.
The Gardens at SmallMeadow started in 2019 as a social media photo album. I used it to share the changes I was making around my property with friends and family. The name itself is personal — an homage to the original owners of my home, the Small family, my Meadowbrook neighborhood, and my favorite British gardener’s home, Long Meadow.
What began as a place to document the garden slowly became something bigger: a way to share what I was learning about food, resilience, sustainability, and the deep satisfaction that comes from growing something with your own two hands.
The Mission
Food freedom should feel possible, practical, and personal.
My mission is to help people grow and preserve more of their own food, whether they have a backyard, balcony, small suburban lot, or a few containers to start with.
This work is about more than gardening. It’s about building skills, saving money, understanding where your food comes from, and feeling more capable in your own home.
Ready to Begin?
Whether you want a delicious edible garden, a pantry filled with food you actually know how to preserve, or the confidence to become more self-sufficient one skill at a time, The Gardens at SmallMeadow is here to help you take the next practical step.