The Heritage Radio Network (HRN) broadcasts live from a shipping container that is set in the midst of a thriving urban garden that grows behind Roberta’s–a pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In June, I was lucky enough to visit the radio station, teach a class about herbs in the garden, eat a delicious pizza on the patio and down a cold beer. Yesterday HRN invited me to be a guest on The Farm Report, one of the station’s many food-related radio programs, to discuss harvesting (you can stream the show here or download the podcast on iTunes). As I sat at my kitchen table in Portland during the interview, it was fun to think about Erin Fairbanks, The Farm Report’s host, and Melissa Metrick, Roberta’s gardener, sitting in the shipping container with a rooftop garden full of tomatoes above their heads.

Hemmed in on all sides by streets and buildings, Roberta’s decidedly urban garden is located on a large cement slab and on the roof of the shipping containers that house the HRN office and studio. If you exit the radio station and turn right, a narrow wooden staircase leads you up to the top of the shipping container and into a garden that packs a ton of produce into precious little space. Melissa utilizes every trick in the book to get the most out of  the garden. Tomatoes twine up trellises, baby greens are planted in narrow rows amongst the tomatoes, and quick, successive crops go in and out of the garden all season.

The two roof top garden areas have hoop house frames over the garden beds. When I was visiting in June, one of the hoop houses was covered in plastic and tomatoes, basil and other warm season crops were growing happily in the nearly tropical conditions inside.

Melissa and her team of urban gardening interns grow food for the restaurant and bar, and I spotted lots of baby greens, herbs, and edible flowers tucked in amongst the vegetables.

The Roberta’s orchard is planted in huge plastic containers reclaimed from a brewery. The planters are mobile and the staff often moves them around when the restaurant hosts events. To fully utilize the growing area under the trees, Melissa plants camomile and annuals flowers for the restaurant’s pastry chef to use and to lure in beneficial insects. Raspberries also grow happily in the big containers.

Honeybees from nearby hives visit brassica flowers that were left to bloom for their pollen and nectar. In one of the big beds I saw carrots and leeks interplanted together, and I spotted tons of both purple and green basil growing in spots all over the garden.

There is definitely a waste not, want not ethic on display in the garden. Everything from restaurant-size tomato cans holding plants to the intensive interplanting on display in the beds. The garden really shows that if you want to grow food, you can do so anywhere as long as you have a little bit of pluck and imagination. If you find yourself in New York, go visit Roberta’s. The garden (and the restaurant!) are worth the trek to Bushwick. And even if you don’t have Big Apple plans in your near future, you can tune in to the HRN podcasts to hear about what is going on in the farms and kitchens of people who love local food.

Happy official summer everyone! Starting tomorrow, I’m off on a little book tour and my friend Robin is opening her completely amazing garden to the public. I’ve sprinkled photos of her garden through out this post and all the details of the tour and her garden are listed at the bottom. If you’re in Seattle, this is a garden not to be missed (and word on the street is the sun will shine in Seattle tomorrow!).

As for the book tour, my first stop is at the Garden Corner Nursery in Tualatin, Oregon, which is just south of Portland and home to the World’s Largest Hanging Basket (seriously, it is 16 feet high and 10 feet wide)! Then, I fly off to the East Coast and Midwest. On Tuesday I am super excited to have an opportunity to teach at Roberta’s in Brooklyn. This little pizzeria has received national acclaim for its food, but most exciting for me is the vegetable garden out back, where I will be teaching my class! Williams-Sonoma is also hosting lucky me at their stores in Short Hills, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois (North Michigan Avenue location). Both of these stores carry Williams-Sonoma’s new Agrarian line, which features a very well curated collection of garden tools, seeds, plants, food preservation supplies, and a very cute chicken coop!

If you happen to be in Portland, Brooklyn, New Jersey or Chicago (or if you have friends and family who are), please do stop by.  I’d love to meet you!

Saturday, June 23rd: Container Vegetable Gardening

The Garden Corner Nursery in Tualatin, Oregon at 11:00 am. Free class!

You can grow almost anything edible in containers, from apple trees to carrots. You just need to have the right type of container and choose the best variety. In this workshop I’m going to cover all the container gardening basics, offer some design tips for putting together beautiful edible containers, and show off some of my favorite edible plants for container gardening. Book signing to follow!

Tuesday, June 26th: Urban Herb Gardening

Roberta’s in Brooklyn, NY at 5:00 pm. Free class!

Learn how to grow herbs and simple ways to infuse their flavor into your everyday recipes! In this class I will cover how to grow herbs successfully in both containers and the garden. Plus, the best techniques for drying and freezing herbs, how to make fresh and dry herbal tea, and how to preserve the flavor of herbs in infused salts, sugars, and vinegars. Book signing to follow!

Wednesday, June 27th: Growing and Cooking with Herbs

Williams-Sonoma at the Mall at Short Hills, NJ at 5:00PM. Free class!

Anyone can grow herbs (even if you think you have a brown thumb)! They thrive in containers, have almost no pest or disease problems, and do not need to be babied! In this hands-on workshop, I’m going to discuss herb growing basics and then we will delve in to using herbs in the kitchen every day. We’ll make fresh herbal tea, a delicious rosemary lemon herb salt, and a versatile compound butter than can be used to flavor everything from grilled fish to boiled new potatoes. There will be lots of treats to sample and a book signing to follow!

Saturday, June 30th: Growing and Cooking with Herbs

Williams-Sonoma on North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois at 1:00 pm. Free class!

Anyone can grow herbs (even if you think you have a brown thumb)! They thrive in containers, have almost no pest or disease problems, and do not need to be babied! In this hands-on workshop, I’m going to discuss herb growing basics and then we will delve in to using herbs in the kitchen every day. We’ll make fresh herbal tea, a delicious rosemary lemon herb salt, and a versatile compound butter than can be used to flavor everything from grilled fish to boiled new potatoes. There will be lots of treats to sample and a book signing to follow!

Sunday July 1st: Herbs 101

Gethsemane Garden Center in Chicago

Learn how to grow herbs and simple ways to infuse their flavor into your everyday recipes! In this class I will cover how to grow herbs successfully in both containers and the garden. Plus, the best techniques for drying and freezing herbs! Book signing to follow.

Sustainable Ballard’s 4th Annual Edible Garden Tour on June 23rd!

10:00 am to 3:00 pm. $10 maps are available at Whittier Elementary on the day of the tour.

Last but certainly not least, I want to tell you about my friend Robin’s garden, which is being featured on the Sustainable Ballard Edible Garden tour this Saturday, June 23rd in Seattle. Robin owns Garden Mentors and her job is to help guide people towards creating a garden that fits their space and lifestyle. Robin has helped me in my own garden and her personal garden is truly one of my very favorite spots. With the help of her husband, Bob, they have transformed the yard around their Ballard Bungalow into an edible wonderland. Vegetables, herbs, and fruit are intermixed among northwest Native plants and ornamentals.

The garden features a cozy fire pit surrounded by stone benches, meandering pathways, a honey bee hive tended by Ballard Bee Company, a gorgeous cedar greenhouse, and numerous hoop houses and cold frames.

If you want ideas for squeezing tons of food into a small urban space in the most beautiful possible way, then you must attend this tour and visit Robin’s garden, which is rarely open to the public! I would totally be there with bells on if I wasn’t on book tour!  Maps are $10 and available the day of the tour from Sustainable Ballard.

This weekend promises to be a fun one for me! Tomorrow morning I’m headed to Molbak’s Nursery in Woodinville, Washington at 10:00 am to talk about how to get the most from your garden. I’m going to discuss organic fertilizing basics, best watering practices, succession planting, and tips for keeping your garden productive and full of food from now through late fall! I’m also planning on picking up some warm season vegetable starts so I can get them in the ground on Sunday.

On Sunday, I have the pleasure of speaking at the beautiful Joy Creek Nursery west of Portland. This gorgeous nursery is set up on a hillside. It has a fabulous selection of plants, but the display gardens are the real treat here. Huge beautiful borders bursting with a unusual and interesting perennials make the shopping experience really special! I’m going to talk about growing food in containers at 1 pm. I’m excited to check out the veggies they will have on hand! They always offer a carefully curated selection of beautiful vegetables and Maurice Horn, the owner of the nursery, promised me they will have some grafted tomatoes and eggplants, basils and beautiful lettuces!

I will be signing copies of my new book Grow Cook Eat: A Food Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening after each event! Hope to see you there.

In my cool Pacific Northwest climate, plants that belong in the cucurbit (squash) family, including melons, cucumbers, summer squash like ‘Costata Romanesco’ and ‘Trombocino’ and winter squash, grow best when planted out as seedlings. Seedlings grow faster and produce fruit sooner than plants directly seeded into the garden with one caveat: you must plant small seedlings. If you buy seedlings, do not be tempted by plants that are beginning to vine. It turns out bigger is not always better. These larger plants tend to transplant poorly, grow slowly and underperform.

I have much better luck with very small seedlings. When cucurbit seedlings germinate the first “leaves” that appear are the spoon shaped cotyledons (also called seed leaves). The plants “true leaves” (the leaves that look like the plants regular leaves) emerge next. The best time to plant squash family seedlings is when the first true leaf is beginning to poke up between the cotyledons. This goes for store bought and homegrown seedlings.

Cucurbits really resent having their roots disturbed. Instead of separating seedlings growing in a clump, I ease the plants out of their pot and plant the whole group of seedlings in the ground (or container). I then give the plants a week or so to grow before I cut off the weakest plants at the soil line with scissors, leaving the strongest one to grow on. I like to pour about a cup of diluted liquid organic fertilizer around the newly transplanted seedlings, and I also set a cloche over the plants for a couple of weeks to keep them toasty warm.

I’m getting a bit of a late start on my summer garden, but I’m planning on getting some squash, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants into the ground this weekend! I’ll let you know what I end up planting. So far I haven’t been able to find seed or seedlings of my favorite cucumber ‘Satsuki Midori’, so I might have to try something new!

Chervil is perhaps the world’s cutest herb. It produces mounds of delicate, ferny foliage, and in early summer lacy white flowers float above the leaves, luring in lots of beneficial insects. Chervil tastes like a very happy marriage between parsley and tarragon. It has a very mild anise flavor that pairs up especially nicely with eggs, potatoes, and asparagus. And best of all, you really only need to plant chervil once. In early summer, after the flowers fade, chervil drops its seeds to the ground where they hang about in the soil, biding their time until the conditions are just perfect for germination (usually when the weather cools down in late summer or early fall).

Chervil is an extremely popular herb in France, but for some inexplicable reason it is almost completely unknown and un-grown in the United States. I’ve never seen it offered at a grocery store and I only rarely spot seedlings at nurseries. Luckily, chervil grows quickly and easily from seed, which you can mail order from Kitchen Garden Seeds. Simple scatter the seeds over bare soil and scratch them in with a rake. Keep the soil moist and the chervil will sprout within a few days. I like to sow it as an understory plant below large brassicas like broccoli.

To harvest, simply snip back individual stems, working from the outside in. Add whole leaves to salads, add chopped chervil to vinaigrettes or stir it into mashed potatoes or potato salad. You can also use the herb as a garnish on egg dishes and to add flavor to roasted vegetables. It is not too late to plant chervil this spring! So get some seed and toss it in the ground. I bet once it sprouts, you will soon decide that chervil deserves a spot in your permanent spot in your garden and kitchen right alongside standbys like Italian parsley and basil.

An acquaintance of mine who grew up in San Diego once told me she had an avocado tree in her childhood backyard, but she didn’t like avocados at the time and never ate them. I almost cried at the thought. I adore avocados. If I could grow an avocado tree in my backyard I would eat them five times a day. They are by far and away my very favorite vegetable (well, technically they are fruit). I often eat them with a spoon, but lately I’ve been topping a platform of garlic rubbed toast with avocado for lunch. I first had avocado served this way at a little cafe (whose name escapes me) in Oakland. It is crazy good, and super fast and easy. Because this dish is so simple use your best olive oil and salt as their flavors will really shine through.

Avocado on Garlic Rubbed Toast

Serves 1

2 1-inch thick slices of good bread

1 clove garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large avocado

1/2 lemon

Maldon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

Toast the bread until it is golden brown. Firmly rub the garlic over the top of each piece of toast (you should be left with just a nub of garlic by the time you’re done). Drizzle each piece of toast with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Gently peel away the skin. Place each half of the avocado cut side down on a cutting board and slice very thinly. Place 1/2 avocado on each piece of toast and fan the slices out slightly. Squeeze a generous amount of lemon juice over each toast, top with Maldon sea salt (or kosher salt if you don’t have Maldon) and plenty of freshly ground pepper.

To enter last week’s Free Range Chicken Garden book giveaway, I asked people to leave a comment with their favorite way to eat eggs. Scrambled or boiled with buttered toast was by far and away the most popular way to enjoy eggs. I quite enjoy eggs served that way too, but I was intrigued by Robin Wyll’s favorite recipe—an apple puff pancake–because it is so simple and uses so many eggs. At this time of year our girls each lay an egg a day, which adds up to nearly 3 dozen a week. Any recipe that calls for more than 3 eggs piques my interest and Robin’s calls for five!

I’ve made the recipe a few times now and have added my own little twist each time. First, I substituted the regular milk for almond milk because we do not usually have milk on hand at home. The next time I made it I added cardamom and vanilla. These additions made me think of chai tea, so I decided to try using strongly brewed chai tea for the liquid, rather than milk or almond milk. Delicious! The resulting pancake is probably a little less custard-y than one made with milk or cream, but it is sweet and spicy and entirely delicious. Thank you Robin! I hope you enjoy the book!

And thanks to everyone else who shared their egg eating ideas. I wish I could give away 130 copies of Jessi’s great book, but since I cannot I hope you will all still check it out. It really is a delightful and imminently useful read.

Spiced Apple Puff Pancake

Adapted from Farm Chicks in the Kitchen by Teri Edwards and Serena Thompson

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sweet cream butter (1/2 stick)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 tea spoon ground cardamon

1 apple

5 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup strongly brewed chai tea

1 teaspoon vanilla

dash of salt

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and cardamon in the center of a cast iron skillet or pie plate and then set in the oven until the butter melts and becomes bubbly (3 to 5 minutes). Meanwhile, core the apple and slice it paper thin using a mandoline or a very sharp knife. Combine the eggs, flour, tea, vanilla, and salt in a blender and blend until smooth, about 30 seconds. Take the skillet or pie plate from the oven and tilt it back and forth to coat the sides with butter. Layer the apple over the butter and sugar, bake for 2 minutes. Then, pour the batter over the apples and bake until the pancake pulls away from the edges of the skillet or pie plate and is puffed and lightly browned on top, 18 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately with warm maple syrup (and extra butter if you are feeling decadent).

Seattle is full of inspiring gardeners, including Annette Cottrell who blogs at Sustainable Eats and co-authored with Joshua McNichols the Urban Farm Handbook: City-Slicker Resources for Growing, Raising, Sourcing, Trading and Preparing What You Eat. This guide details a smart strategy for making the leap off the commercial food grid while still living in the city. The book is chock full of thrifty “why didn’t I think of that?” hints and really good recipes. But I found the section on coordinating a buying club for purchasing produce, grain, and other urban farm supplies in bulk particularly interesting.

To encourage more people to connect with their food, Annette is hosting a year long Urban Farm challenge. April is the gardening challenge month and Annette invited me to participate! My challenge to you is simple: build a trellis and grow some food on it. Taking advantage of the vertical space in your garden allows you to grow more food in the same amount of space. Plus trellises are fun to build, especially with found and recycled material, and they help make a visual focus point the in the garden. Once you get started, it is hard not to add several trellises to the garden (I’ve currently got 5 up right now).

Some of my very favorite vegetables to grow up trellises include:

‘Golden India’ snowpea

‘Satsuki Midori’ cucumber

‘Lemon’ cucumber

‘Trombetta’ summer squash

‘Mexican Sour Gherkin’

‘Delicata’ squash

‘Garden of Eden’ pole bean intermixed with climbing nasturtiums

‘Black’ cherry tomato

If you need some DIY trellis inspiration, check out these past posts:

Pea Trellis Round Up

Simple Vegetable Trellises

Using Sticks to Support Peas

Reclaimed Wood Plant Supports

DIY Cucumber Trellis

You can read more about the challenge and the prizes (and how to win them) over at Sustainable Eats. And in the meantime, be sure to let me know what you plan on trellising this summer!

Spring has finally sprung here in the Northwest! I will be in Washington this weekend talking about vegetable gardening and I hope that you’ll be able to come out to one of my events. Here’s my schedule:

Friday April 13th

Vashon Bookshop on Vashon Island at 6pm

I am super excited to hop on the Vashon ferry tomorrow afternoon and glide across the water to the island! Vashon has an amazing community of gardeners, great nurseries, and the wonderful Vashon Bookshop, who is hosting me for a talk about my new book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food-Lovers Guide to Vegetable Gardening, Including 50 Recipes, Plus Harvesting & Storage Tips. The event begins at 6:00 pm and I’m going to chat about my favorite spring crops and how to grow warm season crops in our cool climate. Plus, I’m happy to answer any of your garden questions and sign a book for you!

Saturday, April 14th

The Plant Farm in Marysville, Washington at 11:00 am

If you’ve never been to the amazing Plant Farm nursery, here’s your excuse! I’m giving a lecture (a fun one, I promise!) on my very favorite subject: extra edibles. What are “extra edibles”, you say? They are the all the wonderful, delicious crops that gardeners get to harvest and eat, like pea shoots, fava greens, kale flower buds,and green coriander. There will be a Q&A  and book signing following the talk and also great shopping!

Sunday, April 15th

Molbak’s Nursery in Woodinville, WA at 11:00

It is Molbak’s Edible Gardening Weekend! I will be at the nursery on Sunday to talk about how to grow and harvest Salad All Summer Long. A Q&A and book signing will follow the talk. It should be a great weekend to get some plants in the ground and Molbak’s is stocked up with lots of veggies seedlings and seeds. Plus, they will be giving away prizes throughout the weekend!

When I was in the Bay Area last month I made a pilgrimage to Annie’s Annuals nursery. Swoon! They of course have an amazing selection of ornamental plants, but they also offer a super cool collection of edibles. Case in point: ‘Crane Red’ kale. How can you resist a kale with a hot pink core? I cannot. I must have it! Rumor has it that this is an “ornamental” kale. I think all kales are ornamental. ‘Nero di Toscana’ is one of the most beautiful foliage plants there is. And you can eat it. Apparently ‘Crane Red’ is very popular in the florist trade because it grows quite tall and eventually forms what looks like a hot pink rose. But of course, it is not a rose. It’s kale! If you’ve sampled ‘Crane Red’, do let me know if it is worth eating. In the mean time, I’ve resolved to grow it and try eating it too. Even if it ends up tasting bad, I know it will look good.