Chef's Culinary Philosophy
The CHEF'S CULINARY PHILOSOPHY, how he likes to cook, revolves around "fresh." Everything is prepared to order, they prepare everything on property. They cut their own meats and seafood, prepare all the soups and sauces. They train their apprentices and other culinarians on how to harvest vegetables; so when send out for basil, for example, they don't come back with the whole plant.
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Potager Garden
This garden is considered a POTAGER GARDEN garden. They originated in France in the 17th century and people from the affluent to farmers all had kitchen gardens which is basically what this is. It has 4 quadrants. One can have the quadrants in any shape desired, but they are always geometrical and they typically were not shared with others, instead 1 per family.
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Non-Vegetable Plants
This garden incorporates a lot of NON-VEGETABLE PLANTS. It has violas, marigolds, etc. It is not only a functional garden but as well a visually beautiful garden. That's particularly important here because these are display gardens for their guests. The chives are an example, they're year round, they do go a little dormant in the winter but Sandy has enough chives to supply the chefs year round. They don't need to order them, instead just come out here and cut them off. They are flowering right now and they are pretty and the flowers can be eaten although fairly strong.
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Leaving Cool Season Vegetables
One of the advantages of LEAVING COOL SEASON VEGETABLES in the garden longer is that the blooms are quite attractive. For example, presently the cabbage and Kale are in flower, the brussels sprouts have gone to flower and the arugula is one of the prettiest flowering plants in the garden.
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Planting Cucumbers
They start with CUCUMBER. Most, when thinking of vining plants think they need to put their cages upright but Sandy actually lays the cage down. First start with a welded wire cage, lay it down, stake it to the ground by placing stakes on all 4 corners to keep it from blowing over or rolling over. Then plant your seeds in every other hole because cucumbers like to ramble. As they grow they climb on top of the cage or around it and when the cucumbers are ready they will hang down from the wire, making it easy to pick. Just stick your hand inside the cage and pick them, it's that easy.
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Pruning Tomatoes
Eric talks about PRUNING. Should we prune. Many gardeners don't prune their tomatoes, that's totally fine but oftentimes when we see a plant we see the little suckers growing in the branch angle. It's recommend to pop them out, it will build a more structurally sound plant but will also limit the number of branches on the tomato plant. This generally will entice bigger fruit and better tasting fruit. So, generally Eric would recommend that you pop off the little suckers.
Click here for more info
Planting A Tomato
Sandy shows how to PLANT A TOMATO. She has 2 different ways to do this. 1 dig a trench which is called trenching. This is particularly helpful when planting a long or quite large tomato plant. Simply lay the plant down, bury the plant by covering it all the way to its neck. There are little avantious roots up and down the stem and they will take hold.
Click here for more info
Succession Planting
Sandy next talks more about SUCCESSION PLANTING which is a wonderful way of making sure you have fresh vegetables all throughout the season. She has a great visual example with 3 batches of lettuce. The red lettuce at the end is about 10 weeks old and about ready to be cut. The next section is about 4 or 5 weeks old and needs to grow more. The last section is relatively new, just starting.
Click here for more info
Planting Lettuce Seeds
LETTUCE SEEDS can be quite small. Thus we must be careful about how to plant. If planted too deep they either will germinate poorly or perhaps not at all. Sandy shows us how she plants lettuce. The lettuce seed is very small and because it is so tiny it can blow away easily. To help with that get a cup of sand, put your lettuce seed in the cup and sand, stir it up, then just sprinkle it on top of the ground.
Click here for more info
Portable Greenhouse
GardenSMART regularly receives questions about planting early. The gardener may have a short growing season or they may just want to get a jump on the season but the viewer is concerned about a late cold snap. Sandy has a tip for PROTECTING PLANTS that are established. She takes a plastic jug, in this case she's used an old milk jug, cut out the bottom, then puts it over the plants, firmly pushes it down into the ground.
Click here for more info
LINKS:
Barnsley Gardens Resort
Georgia Resorts | Barnsley Gardens Resort | Atlanta Getaways
Plant List
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Transcript of Show
For Eric, of all the simple pleasures in life enjoying fresh vegetables from the garden is a favorite. In this episode we design and plant a vegetable garden.
Barnsely Gardens Resort Executive Chef Charles Vosburgh joins Eric. The Chef starts at the beginning. When he was very young he spent a lot of time in the kitchen with his grandmother, he then went through school and the service and when he came out still had a love for cooking. He then got into an apprentice program, spent 3 years at that, then worked himself around to different resorts and country clubs.
He is no ordinary Chef and has done some extraordinary things. The Culinary Olympics for example. He has been on 2 Culinary Olympic teams. It's held in Frankfort Germany where teams from 56 countries, from all over the world, compete in hot food categories and cold food categories. It's a great way to learn what Chefs around the world are doing.
The CHEF'S CULINARY PHILOSOPHY, how he likes to cook, revolves around "fresh." Everything is prepared to order, they prepare everything on property. They cut their own meats and seafood, prepare all the soups and sauces. They train their apprentices and other culinarians on how to harvest vegetables; so when send out for basil, for example, they don't come back with the whole plant. They teach them how to cut the plants so it will continue to grow and get larger and produce even more.
They are fortunate that the vegetable garden is just a stones throw from the back door of the kitchen. As well, some herbs are grown around the cottages, as are fig trees, peach trees and quince. And, that is important to the Chef since he prefers to use the freshest ingredients. For about 6 months of the year they grow vegetables trying to focus on heirloom vegetables and specialty vegetables. These are used in their fine dining restaurant, the Rice House. When they can pick something the day it will be used, even the afternoon before use at dinner it is more flavorful, a smoother flavor, than something like herbs that were, at best, picked several days before. It's a pleasure to go to the garden or the cottages and pick fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit. There is no beating fresh.
Eric next meets with Sandy Sanders the Head Horticulturist at Barnsley Gardens Resort. For Sandy this is her dream job. She was laid off from her previous job at a cotton mill, went back to school, received her horticulture degree and is now here.
Eric has visited Barnsley often but the vegetable garden seems to have undergone the greatest change. The vegetable garden is near and dear to Sandy's heart. When she first arrived here she asked if she could take over this garden. It's been a lot of hard work but it's been rewarding as well. This garden serves many purposes. It is right besides the restaurant, thus helpful for the kitchen staff but is also a great display garden. The guests do like to visit and see what's growing. Many people don't know what vegetables look like and are particularly impressed when the Chef is in the garden.
This garden provides an excellent opportunity to see an active vegetable garden, with its different vegetables, and to learn basically where vegetables come from. Eric speaks from experience, his kids are fascinated with his vegetable garden. Although he has thousands of flowering plants in his yard his kids are much more interested in the vegetables. When are the tomatoes coming in, where does squash come from, what are the goofy little things that pop out from the leaves that they call broccoli, there is just a deep fascination with vegetables and Eric is thrilled that today's topic is vegetables. So they get started.
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This garden is considered a POTAGER GARDEN garden. They originated in France in the 17th century and people from the affluent to farmers all had kitchen gardens which is basically what this is. It has 4 quadrants. One can have the quadrants in any shape desired, but they are always geometrical and they typically were not shared with others, instead 1 per family.
Top
This garden incorporates a lot of NON-VEGETABLE PLANTS. It has violas, marigolds, etc. It is not only a functional garden but as well a visually beautiful garden. That's particularly important here because these are display gardens for their guests. The chives are an example, they're year round, they do go a little dormant in the winter but Sandy has enough chives to supply the chefs year round. They don't need to order them, instead just come out here and cut them off. They are flowering right now and they are pretty and the flowers can be eaten although fairly strong. Thus a lot of times they are placed in vinegar. She has cabbage, red cabbage and lettuces and sugar snap peas, a lot of things growing right now.
Succession gardening is important to Sandy, she always wants fresh vegetables. It's ideal to have one thing ready to pick as another is getting ready. Lettuce is a great example. Start one batch of lettuce, let it come up, then plant another batch. By doing this you should always have fresh lettuce to pick. Oftentimes we'll till our plot and put in all our seeds over a weekend, but for the most part the problem is everything is then ready at one time, that's pretty much their life cycle. If you spread out the time you plant the first batch of lettuce to the next batch, even by just a week or so, it ensures a much longer season of picking fresh vegetables. You can do this with most of your seed type vegetables like carrots, radishes, almost with about anything in a vegetable garden.
Eric notices a lot of cool season crops but we're coming into the time of year where warm season crops are typically planted. Fall and spring vegetables are basically the same, they like cooler soil. One should wait until the last frost date, in this part of the country late April, to plant summer vegetables. They like warmer soil and it takes some time to let the sun warm the ground after a cool winter.
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One of the advantages of LEAVING COOL SEASON VEGETABLES in the garden longer is that the blooms are quite attractive. For example, presently the cabbage and Kale are in flower, the brussels sprouts have gone to flower and the arugula is one of the prettiest flowering plants in the garden. Just because it's long in the tooth and lost its culinary utility these plants are still quite attractive and they help attract bees to the garden.
It's about time to plant the warm season crops. Sandy discusses the transition. All plants except for the chives and onions will come out, they'll be tilled up. So one needs to know what will go in next. And Sandy finds that exciting and fun. Different seasons provide different opportunities to try something new, something different, they're constantly changing plants. This also makes it an exciting garden for visitors because every time they come back they'll see a new round of crops and importantly they'll see those vegetables on their plates. The chefs incorporate a lot of peppers and tomatoes, chives and squash into the menu. It's rewarding for Sandy to see her garden plants being used in the restaurant.
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Sandy and Eric next start planting warm season vegetables. They start with CUCUMBER. Most, when thinking of vining plants think they need to put their cages upright but Sandy actually lays the cage down. First start with a welded wire cage, lay it down, stake it to the ground by placing stakes on all 4 corners to keep it from blowing over or rolling over. Then plant your seeds in every other hole because cucumbers like to ramble. As they grow they climb on top of the cage or around it and when the cucumbers are ready they will hang down from the wire, making it easy to pick. Just stick your hand inside the cage and pick them, it's that easy. Sandy is planting both seeds and plants. The advantage here is you have 2 different stages of plants. One is ahead of the other, thus will grow to maturity quicker. The advantage of the cage is that cucumbers often require a fairly large footprint but the wire cage keeps them somewhat contained, it's a great way to contain a rambling vine like cucumber which is especially important if you have a relatively small garden.
Tomatoes are one of the greatest vegetables in the garden and one that the home gardener gains the greatest benefit from growing. Tomatoes we buy in grocery stores generally are picked green, then gassed with ethylene, then shipped from who knows where, thus they're not fresh. The only way to get that fresh picked tomato is to walk into your own garden and pick them. There are many different varieties of tomatoes, from the little cherry tomatoes to roma which are generally used in sauces, to some of the bigger sandwich tomatoes. When selecting tomatoes we often see the words determinate and indeterminate. Which you choose is a personal choice. Determinate tomatoes grow to a certain point, then stop, then produce flowers. These plants produce a more compact type shrub. Indeterminate tomatoes will grow throughout the season and keep producing more tomatoes. There is no right nor wrong, just what you want your tomato plant to do.
Eric talks about PRUNING. Should we prune. Many gardeners don't prune their tomatoes, that's totally fine but oftentimes when we see a plant we see the little suckers growing in the branch angle. It's recommend to pop them out, it will build a more structurally sound plant but will also limit the number of branches on the tomato plant. This generally will entice bigger fruit and better tasting fruit. So, generally Eric would recommend that you pop off the little suckers.
Top
Sandy shows how to PLANT A TOMATO. She has 2 different ways to do this. 1 dig a trench which is called trenching. This is particularly helpful when planting a long or quite large tomato plant. Simply lay the plant down, bury the plant by covering it all the way to its neck. There are little avantious roots up and down the stem and they will take hold. Many plants are grown in containers and the container shapes the roots, the roots are basically circling inside the container, when we lay the plant over and plant it like this all the new roots will quickly integrate into the native soil. Eric mentions the pot which is a biodegradable peat pot. It's a great pot but Eric still recommends taking the plant out of the pot. Many growers place plants in a peat pot but the roots will continue to circle inside the pot until the peat finally biodegrades. The objective in planting is to get the roots from the plant to integrate into the native soil as quickly as possible so that it gets its best start, ensuring it is a strong plant.
It's not surprising to find 2 plants in 1 pot. It doesn't hurt to separate them if you wish. For the second method, bury this plant up to its neck. You can even bring it down a little or mound up the soil so it supports the plant because you have the root system up and down the stem that will help it grow. Some areas may have a more compacted soil making it difficult to go super deep, so building up the soil can be a great option.
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Sandy next talks more about SUCCESSION PLANTING which is a wonderful way of making sure you have fresh vegetables all throughout the season. She has a great visual example with 3 batches of lettuce. The red lettuce at the end is about 10 weeks old and about ready to be cut. The next section is about 4 or 5 weeks old and needs to grow more. The last section is relatively new, just starting. She has been planting lettuce approximately every month to make sure they have fresh lettuce.
Top
LETTUCE SEEDS can be quite small. Thus we must be careful about how to plant. If planted too deep they either will germinate poorly or perhaps not at all. Sandy shows us how she plants lettuce. The lettuce seed is very small and because it is so tiny it can blow away easily. To help with that get a cup of sand, put your lettuce seed in the cup and sand, stir it up, then just sprinkle it on top of the ground. Often the directions say to put a quarter inch of soil on top but when you use the sand you don't need to worry - sprinkle it on the ground and water it in. They should do fine.
Top
GardenSMART regularly receives questions about planting early. The gardener may have a short growing season or they may just want to get a jump on the season but the viewer is concerned about a late cold snap. Sandy has a tip for PROTECTING PLANTS that are established. She takes a plastic jug, in this case she's used an old milk jug, cut out the bottom, then puts it over the plants, firmly pushes it down into the ground. We all have empty milk jugs lying around, this is a wonderful way of recycling and it's a PORTABLE GREENHOUSE. And if trying to germinate seeds and want to speed up the process this method will concentrate a little more heat around the seeds. This method can be used for many different purposes.
If you don't have a lot of space you can still fit a lot of vegetables into a very small area. Sandy has a 6 by 8 garden surrounded by marigolds that can feed a family of 4, possibly 6 with vegetables. Containers are another small space option. Oftentimes containers are relegated to flowering annuals but pretty much any vegetable can be grown in a container. Sandy has an herb garden in one container. It loves to be in the sun and when placed next to the kitchen is extremely handy. In it she has oregano, three sages, coriander or cilantro, chives, 2 kinds of basil, oregano and 2 kinds of parsley. Thus she has a whole herb garden in about 16 inches. And, again there is nothing better than fresh herbs.
Another container features swiss chard which is beautiful. It's getting taller and has pretty colors in its veins. Still another container has cabbage and cauliflower which will leaf out over the pot making a beautiful display. Ornamental and edible, a great combination. About any vegetable can be grown in a container so even if you have very little space you can grow vegetables in containers and enjoy fresh food.
Eric thanks Sandy. We've learned a lot about vegetable gardening. Thanks for the ideas and tips.
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LINKS:
Barnsley Gardens Resort
Georgia Resorts | Barnsley Gardens Resort | Atlanta Getaways
Plant List
