For Dan Pelosi, aka GrossyPelosi—the recipe developer, food content creator, and bestselling author—throwing big food parties and entertaining large groups is as central to his identity as whipping something up for two. (He is Italian, after all.) His second cookbook, Let’s Party: Recipes and Menus for Celebrating Every Day, released in 2025, is not only an ode to crowd-pleasing dishes, but also a dedication to farmers’ markets, tabletop presentation, and vibes—all of the elements for creating an inviting, sensorial atmosphere.
So when it came time to build his dream kitchen garden, Pelosi had a few ideas for what it could look like. Moving between the kitchen and garden would have to be easy. The garden would have to be large enough for raised beds, and a dining area for hosting within earshot of those beds would be necessary, too. He’d have a grill station set up within the garden fence. From inside the kitchen, Pelosi wanted his window view to be of his garden so that “when I wash dishes,” he says, “I can see my tomatoes growing.”
The garden is just outside of the kitchen at Dan Pelosi’s Hudson Valley area home, making barbecue prep as simple as possible.
In 2023, when Pelosi and his boyfriend, Gus Heagerty, moved into a 1850s Greek Revival colonial farmhouse in the Hudson Valley area, Pelosi’s main project was to rebuild the kitchen from scratch. The previous kitchen was part of an addition built in the 1950s inside the garage that had been “really poorly done.” They tore the whole thing down and built a new kitchen in its place along with a mud room, pantry, and powder room.
Before the renovation—which was featured by Dwell’s sister site, Domino—began, Pelosi had already been thinking about the future. “My architect and I designed the kitchen knowing that I would eventually want to have a garden off of it, so we thought about access points and how it could potentially lay out,” he says. Both Pelosi and Heagerty grew up with parents who gardened, so building a raised bed garden was top of mind. The kitchen took nine months to complete and the garden was built about a year and a half later.
The garden is visible just outside the kitchen windows.
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Last spring, the garden build out began, with the team excavating the leftover stone and dirt from the kitchen renovation to level out the backyard for a flat garden. A fence was installed. Custom beds were built. Herbs and vegetables were planted. A picnic table was added. “Every move we made sort of informed the next move,” Pelosi says. By mid-August last year, the beds were popping off with more plump tomatoes and zucchinis than Pelosi knew what to do with. His first go as an upstate gardener was, in many ways, successful, but he also learned a lot about how he could improve his growing and entertaining plans for the following summer.
Just after the one-year anniversary of Let’s Party, Pelosi shares how his kitchen garden was originally designed and how it has since evolved into a more inviting communal space. “We’re slowly making updates so we don’t want to go indoors,” he says.
The vegetable garden, picnic table dining area, and barbecue zone are all contained by a fence.
Fence it in
“I really thought about the positioning of the garden,” Pelosi says, making sure it would occupy a spot in the yard that gets direct sun all day long. After the right spot was decided upon, they had a a horse fence built—one that matches the farmhouse aesthetic of the home—and added crushed rock and a stone path leading to the main gate from the kitchen.
Pelosi decided on six custom raised beds. The length and width dimensions of the beds are standard, but taller to suit Pelosi’s height so that he doesn’t have to bed over as much when tending to his crops.
Earlier this summer, Pelosi added a seventh mini bed with trellis against the shady wall of the house to grow cup-and-saucer vine flowers that will eventually reach the roof. “I’m hoping they take over the whole garden wall. I looked everywhere for a shady flower and this one is taking off,” he says.
On the opposite side of the fence, flowers are ready to be cut as gifts for guests.
Build a perimeter garden
Because he’s always having guests over, this summer Pelosi added a cutting bed to grow flowers specifically to use for decoration and to give as gifts. He built out the perimeter of the garden, surrounding it with ground-level beds for a perennial border of flowers. Then, they planted asters and marigolds in some of the vegetable beds as well, which act as natural pest repellent.
The picnic table is just a few steps from the barbecue zone, making it easy to entertain and grill at once.
Go on, grill
Grilling has always been a go-to move for Pelosi—he has a whole chapter dedicated to open-flame cooking in Let’s Party. Over the nine months when he and Heagerty didn’t have a functioning kitchen, Pelosi grilled most of their meals. He has two Weber grills in his garden—one gas, one charcoal—alongside his newest acquisition, a Cuisinart work table, where he can prep food. “It even has a little thing for a trash bag and a holster for paper towels,” he says.
Having the grills in the bounds of the garden and near the picnic table was important to Pelosi to help “expand the garden usage to cooking and entertaining,” rather than having them off to the side. That way, whoever’s grilling (Pelosi, usually) isn’t isolated from the group—it’s possible to socialize and cook at the same time.
The larger gas grill is mostly used for ease; the charcoal grill is when “I really want that smokey charcoal flavor,” says Pelosi. “When I’m hosting a big gathering, I will have both going at the same time.” The veggies from his garden that are always hitting the grates include eggplant, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, and scallions. “I will make a dressing with my garden herbs to serve with them!”
The picnic table adds a place to relax in the shade.
Get a custom picnic table
Through Facebook Marketplace, Pelosi found a local carpenter whom he hired to make a couple of benches for seating and a custom picnic table for dining. “I wanted a specific size,” Pelosi says. “I wanted the width to be eight feet, the same width of the beds so that it all lines up. Plus, picnic tables are narrow. I needed a custom width to be able to put food in the middle of the table.” He also added a patio umbrella to provide shade.
Serve it well
Pelosi has a way with presentation. Even before he collaborated with the enamelware company Crow Canyon on a collection, he was already a huge fan of the brand’s serving plates, trays, and pitchers. “Everything is metal and lightweight, really easy for outdoor entertaining, and you don’t have to worry about dropping it or things breaking. I can also put trays right on the grill and cook on it,” he says. Afterward, the enamelware can go into the dishwasher for an easy clean-up. “It’s about maximum usability and efficiency.”
Pelosi’s own enamelware, a collaboration with Crow Canyon, are among his servingware essentials.
When it comes to hosting, Pelosi, who has a huge linen stash, will lay down a large tablecloth and bring out cloth napkins for guests. He’ll create a little bouquet of wild flowers from his cutting garden and arrange it in an enamel pitcher for dinner parties. “You can smell the tomatoes while you’re sitting at the table and it feels really magical,” he says of the dining experience.
Consider the bounty
For his first summer with the garden, Pelosi planted a smattering of herbs, vegetables, and plants—too much of everything. “Last year I was growing lemon verbena and I was like, Why am I growing this? I don’t even know what the fuck to do with this,” Pelosi says. “So I spent most of my winter researching, making lists, and keeping track of all the herbs and vegetables I cook with and will actually use.”
Some of the go-to ingredients from his garden include tomatoes (his number one), zucchini, squash, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, and a whole salad bed with butter, lettuce, romaine, and kale. “A lot of the inspiration came from stuff I used to garden with my dad and my grandfather,” Pelosi says.
Trellises help keep plants healthy, but they look beautiful when everything’s in bloom too.
Trust in trellises
Trellises were added this year which can help keep plants healthy. “By midsummer last year, I was removing plants and trying to air it out because what I learned is that the airflow is really important to prevent disease and rotting. It was a big lesson,” Pelosi says. He had 10 tomato plants in a single bed last year, which was crowded; this year, he’s pared it down to five.
He hired a local handyman to create two wooden trellises from three pieces of lumber that span between the beds of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and melons. He then bought twine and added vertical string supports so that the plants grow upwards, a method he learned through a lot of Googling. “There’s so much information on the internet,” he says.
Set up other hangout areas
The garden picnic table is where larger gatherings take place, but Pelosi has smaller outdoor entertaining nooks where guests can take in a different scene or pace. Right outside the kitchen door is a stone patio with bistro chairs from Olive Ateliers, coffee table, and a couch from CB2 where “Gus and I have our morning coffee, where we spend afternoons taking calls or writing, and also where we have cozy, casual dinners,” Pelosi says. “In the evening, the entire area is shaded, which is the opposite of the sunny picnic table in the garden. They’re just steps away from each other, but provide very different vibes.” There’s also a moveable firepit outside the garden fence—a delightful and lovely transition after the golden-hour dinner has wrapped and the stars are beginning to emerge.
Tomatoes are Pelosi’s top garden-sourced ingredient.
Add nighttime light
A new addition this year is solar-powered LED string lights, which have pole attachments that screw directly into the fence. “It’s really nice to eat as the sun is setting. When the sun’s down, these light up,” he says. The string lights also make him feel closer to his garden: “When it’s dark in the kitchen, I can look outside and still keep an eye on my plants.”
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