What you should know about planting a vegetable garden... As Mick Kopetsky digs the shovel into the pile of soil, a pleasant scent of fresh soil and warm compost wafts through the morning air. “A secret recipe,” he says with a smile and lets a handful of earth mixture crumble through his fingers. He spreads a shovelful of soil between the endives and lettuces. “The garden just consumes it.” And really. If the rich harvest of organic vegetables that he can enjoy all year round thanks to his 2,700 square meter vegetable garden is taken as a criterion, his recipe deserves a Michelin star.
“What would you expect from a garden designer collaborating with a Le Cordon Bleu student?” jokes Kopetsky, glancing toward the house, perched on a terraced hill, that belongs to his culinary partner Bieke Burwell. Kopetsky is also the owner of MIX Garden, a landscape design company, and even supplies his organic vegetables to several restaurants in Northern California's Sonoma County. The collaboration with Burwell began over a decade ago when Bieke and her husband Brian purchased the 11-acre property in the Dry Creek Valley wine region west of Healdsburg while it was still in the middle of construction. Kopetsky was working with the project's original landscape architect at the time, James David of Austin, Texas, and stopped by to check out the setup.
The house itself was designed by Richard Beard of BAR architects in San Francisco. To stay in harmony with the modern style, Kopetsky developed a plan for the garden that featured a mix of drought-resistant shrubs and grasses. These in turn were to have a roof made of native oak and Douglas fir. Paths made of thick, hand-carved limestone slabs wind through the hillside garden surrounding the house and offer great views of the valley full of vineyards for which Dry Creek is known. A grove of Italian olive trees provides enough fruit to produce around 40 liters of golden-green olive oil per year. The grapes from a small vineyard are processed into one of the best red wines in the region.
Due to the steep landscape and stony ground, planting a vegetable garden was not initially planned. But one fine afternoon, while Kopetsky and Burwell were looking at the property from the patio, the conversation about their shared passion for food came up. Burwell's gaze fell on a bare area at the foot of the hill. “I would like to plant asparagus,” recalled the Belgian-born cooking expert. “…and endives.” Kopetsky, for his part, has always had a desire to try growing food crops. And so they hatched a win-win plan: Burwell would pay for the drip irrigation system and infrastructure and get to harvest whatever she wanted in return. Kopetsky, on the other hand, is free to test his green thumb as he pleases, take care of the plants and the harvest, and sell all the remaining vegetables. It never even occurred to any of them at the time that a few years later they would be the owners of a garden so healthy and productive that the asparagus and the endives and, not to forget, the cabbage, the broad beans and tomatoes of the finest restaurants in the area.
Creating a vegetable garden in Chateau Potager style
And although the decision to plant a vegetable garden at the foot of the hill was a coincidence, it became the perfect place for the European-style garden they envisioned. Surrounded by a rustic wooden fence to emphasize the dark purple of the manzanita trees on the property, the formal geometry is reminiscent of the design of the Chateau Potager (French gardens) typical of the 17th century. The rows of vegetables surrounded by a gravel path mingle with the spices and flowers. Italian cypress trees decorate the garden on every corner.
Kopetsky cultivates each plant from seed, most of which are heirloom varieties. These include 50 types of tomatoes, 15 different salads and 8 varieties of Italian eggplant. They chose these varieties because of their taste and appearance. “Heirloom varieties help maintain biodiversity in the garden and, in my opinion, they look better and are more delicious,” says Kopetsky. The “Mammoth German Gold” tomatoes have red stripes, the “Tendersweet” watermelon reveals dark orange flesh and the “Quadrato d'Asti Giallo” pepper has such a thick and juicy shell that every bite is almost thirst-quenching.
A natural fertilizer
Kopetsky describes his chemical-free gardening as “clean,” which is also often used in agroecology when talking about the benefits of locally grown, seasonal and environmentally friendly vegetables. He provides green manure by planting broad beans, which release nitrogen into the soil, and he supplements with organic matter each time he plants and weeds, although the drip irrigation system keeps weed infestation to a minimum.
Their collaboration has been so successful that Kopetsky has been asked by several families in the area to help plant and maintain their vegetable garden, including the owners of “Farmhouse,” an award-winning restaurant and spa hotel nearby Forestville. “I love how Bieke's Garden grew from two people's passion for food and then involved the local community in such a healthy and sustainable way,” says Kopetsky.
He sells excess produce from Burwell's garden to over a dozen local restaurants, including Dry Creek Kitchen, Scopa, Barndiva and Cyrus. They are all known for serving fresh food. “Every vegetable is picked the same day it is eaten, whether it is intended for Bieke's kitchen or for one of the restaurants. Nothing is transported further than 15 to 25 kilometers. Even if the vegetables are grown organically, the best parts of the vegetables are destroyed when they are transported 1000 km or more.”
Even before the first seeds were planted, Burwill told Kopetsky she envisioned a labyrinth next to the vegetable garden. The connection in both minds, of course. “The vegetable garden makes me intensely aware of the circle of life and how the seasons follow a constant path from birth to death and resurrection,” says Burwell. She often invites her guests to walk with her along the 300 meter long path to the center of the labyrinth and back. Afterwards there is dinner with one of her favorite dips made from “marrowfat” beans from the vegetable garden. “I find a wonderful symmetry in cultivating healthy eating and walking the labyrinth,” she says. “It is like an appetizer for the soul, food for the mind and body.”
- Creating Soil: A healthy vegetable garden literally “eats” good soil at a rate of about 6 parts soil to one crop. This makes topping up the soil an important part of gardening. Garden designer Mick Kopetsky recommends amending the soil with organic matter with each new plant. Its fertilizer consists of a mixture of rice husk, cow dung andCompost from grape pomaceand garden waste.
- The Seeds: Help preserve the garden's biodiversity by choosing heirloom seeds from plants that are naturally pollinated and GMO-free. Some heirloom varieties have been around for centuries and for good reason. They just taste better. Also, try to collect seeds from your own vegetables for next season or exchange them with other gardeners.
- Stay true to your region: Try to buy vegetables that were grown in your area rather than those that came to your store through a long journey. Look for communities where you can exchange your harvested tomatoes for, for example, your neighbor's freshly harvested corn. Support the gardeners in your area by shopping at the market more often. If you have space but no time, ask a gardener to plant and harvest the vegetables for you. A good example of this is the relationship between Mick Kopetsky and Bieke Burwell.
More ideas
