Tell us a little about yourself.
my extensive hobby as being a gardener
growing up in the 80s food was sort of an after
reddish
so I got a degree in psychology
needed to do something a little more inspiring
lived in Europe for a semester in college
traveled around Europe and really saw food in a different light
experienced it really differently from what I had
relatives out there as well so I came back to the twin cities
Italian kitchens
owners
kind of moved around bit as chefs do is quite normal
I also started gardening at a fairly young age
early twenties
I ended up dating a woman from the Ukraine, she had a strong gardening interest
gardening with my parents
but very simple, chard and green beans and that kind of thing
I started working at a natural foods coop right next to a really old and thriving community garden
in St Paul and that’s where I met some really great gardeners who I would call mentors
One particular gardener there was a soil scientist at the university of MN, she took me under her wing learned some incredible techniques
One thing that really inspired me from a young age to kind of continue this and do a lot more was just witnessing the differences in her garden and other community gardens
She made her community garden plot not tilled in the back row and the rest of the 90 plots were tilled once a year. In the other plots, the soil was still quite good but it was obvious she had the
It was no mystery she was doing something different and right. It was from her I learned about
Mycorrhizal fungi and the relationship to the plants and how important that was
using those techniques
I was able to follow in her footsteps in a way when she got done, working at an urban agriculture non profit in st paul, centered at gardens all over st Paul
I was able to take over that job when she was finished, working on her phd
I got to be a market gardener for 3 years, all the while I was cooking at night, I couldn't do that these days, way too intense, way too much
So wait, are you a rockstar millennial?
I'm 42 so I'm more of an xer
yeah for me
For many years, I've been involved in both the culinary world and the growing world
I see that they are so intermittently intertwined, and kind of dependent on each other, the communities overlap so much. I find that really inspiring, such that I was able to go to the MOSES
MIDWEST Organic Conference for Organic Farming and meet a lot of great farmers and gardeners
move to the country and start a land based business
Alas I stayed in the city and am still working as a chef
After working at some great restaurants and for some people who are superstars
for natural foods
local alice waters
worked for this woman for 7 years, after that ended
I started my own business as a personal chef, working in people’s homes
cooking Monday - Friday, everyday meals, it's different from catering
Gives me a lot more time on weekends and evenings
being a chef is pretty awesome but the restaurant life can be hard on you, working 60 hours a week bare minimum. The end game is sort of to own your own restaurant but that takes lots of hours and lots of risk.
Well, I worked at a restaurant this summer, and I told the owner over and over it's amazing what you do here. How many people they employ and the pickle guy, and the bakery guy next door, the egg guy, and produce guy, there is so much food and so much to run and manage all the employees, etc. What it must be like to pay all these people through the winter.
I've been listening to the organize 365 podcast and this woman talks about getting help, either in your professional life or home, like getting someone to cook for you!
I don’t grow it, but sometimes I will take a small portion from my own garden
if I have an abundance of something, inspired to use some of my own stuff
We know how abundant gardens are, so I do take some of that stuff
IDK if you know this but what is basic model, in the twin cities, we have a really strong natural coop, there are just a ton of them
blossomed and proliferated in the last 20-30 years. Went though a hiatus part of the 80s 90s so I am lucky to be a member of some of the co-ops where I buy that stuff.
learn how your membership can be a driver in decision making to get new products or find different ones
give feedback
My particular passion and interest is
looking for the best nutrient nutrient dense food that is available.
that’s where I get the produce, I don't grow at the clients homes.
How many homes do you go to a day?
usually one a day sometimes 2
two is about the limit
We're pretty spread out, so just the commute time. I am hoping to maybe do some bike commuting next year.
I asked to describe a typical day.
I am a single employee, maybe in a catering job I hire some help.
in a typical day
I am just going to the coop, getting some things I might need
planning I am following an agreed upon menu
When you go into the store,don’t know what’s gonna be fresh and available
chef skills of thinking on the fly are pretty useful
I like to change the menu seasonally, dishes.
Do you have some entertaining or recipes to share?
One of the best cooking tips I could mention
If you want to sauté something and you put too many things in the pan, you end up steaming them which is a totally different process then sauteing.
One of the most common things people do to possibly get not as nice results
matter of physics, draw more heat into the pan, the more things you put into the pan
heat is more distributed
don’t get the browning so you might as well get the steamer out.
You hit my number right on the nail, I usually fill a cast iron pan as high as I can, I tell my mom all the time, it's not that people don't want to cook, they don't want to clean up so one pan is better then more.
don’t have the time
We have a one year old now so I can relate to don’t have the time
it’s rare that I cook without an herb
she talks about
sour quality to lift the flavors
Kind of acts a little bit like salt in lifting the flavors balancing out the fattiness you
What about wine, for all of us Italians out there, my mom's big sauce is lemon and wine?
this comes from Julia child, my dad used to do this, I just have this memory of slowly simmering tomato sauce. If you reduce your wine slowly you will get more flavor
bubbling real slowly through the day
different kind of chemical reactions happening
memory of that taste is really quite great
wines in a professional kitchen we sometimes we don't have time to slowly reduce, and have to do it more rapidly, can’t extract, not getting that long slow cooking
I'm thinking in red sauce my mom is more likely to use red wine and for fish she is likely to use white.
improved
ala manette sauces
your dealing with such a small quality bigger pot reducing tomato or Balinese
one recipe I love and will share with you
tend to cook simple
love to be in the garden
daylight hours are limited so you need to be out there
lacinto dinosaur kale comes from tuscany
strip off the stem
don’t alway have to do that
mmmm, last summer I cooked a ton of that. Ever since I discovered it it is my favorite kale!
I'm curious. Tell us about your garden, do you live in the city.
I'm in Minneapolis, fairly urban. We have 1/8 acre
before buying our house a few years ago I was in a lot of community gardens
intentional community with a community garden attached to it. Before that we were in rural Wisconsin, I kind of revitalized and expanded an orchard
when we set up this garden
curious to do
experiment
To watch the different examples of things growing was really impressive to me, I found the one I used the cover crop on over the following 3-4 years really produced bigger and more robust
Also, the double dug one, we grew sunflowers for our wedding! The sunflowers were like 15 feet tall super happy, everything I have heard of that method produces a lot of productivity.
So how does the double dig method fit into the no-till method is it a broad shovel?
Well the idea is it’s a one and done process where your digging in deep the first time and not touching it ~ I guess that my reaction to that now is that it’s necessary or pertinent in the upper midwest. We have lots of water. Our soils are fairly decent.
What I have seen of the Jeavon's method is it is done in the summer arid where the water is not that abundant
don’t think it would be that important where I am again
my own thoughts now are, at least growing where I am, don’t need much of a raised bed
in GA where you have the clay soils you might go higher where you need the drainage in the Southwest you might go lower and have a sunken bed
different geographic influences
parent soil is really important and working with that.
I have had mixed results where we have imported compost,
small quantities
started out doing a lot of
Over the years, I started doing more. I have been recently interested in what Farmer gabe brown
diverse mixes
7 mixes
so what I have been doing
doing that recently leave them in cover crop for half season or full season if I am preparing the soil.
section of bed
improve the soil
one of the things I have observed cooking and market gardening
one farm in i
gardens of vegan
first o farmers int estate
master famers
top of the market
partnering with the restaurants
been tot heat farm
see what they do
half of the farm in cover crops each year
other half
assorted vegetables
stuff looked so good
really regenerative ag before we were using that term
some of the things I am working on
diverse cover crops
if you are not putting
if you don’t have animals eating it
going to seed at different rates and different times
buckwheat
style
don’t manage them well
manage in terms of knocking it down
a lot of that in your bed
when you re trying to seed lettuce or something
can be a bit of a challenge
I have been teaching cover crop classes
various venues in town
comfrey is a used a lot in permaculture
one thing I will mention about
you put it in somewhere it’s gonna be there for a long time
has a deep taproot
it’s in to stay if you were ever to till
root you cut will start a new plant
easy to propagate
big reason to use comfrey
it’s a mulch maker
make mulch under some fruit trees
perennial plants if you like
throughout the seasons
use that as a mulch
how quickly the leaves darken and blacken
good sign it’s reacting so well with the soil
you can get the common kind
everything different everywhere
where I am in MN it doesn’t reseed itself
there’s a cultivar called
sterile cultivar
it’s seeds aren’t going to be
south in the south
time to reside itself
time to
become more of a problem
apply local factor
not too close tot eh trunk
feet away
use it to create mulch for that tree
pairs fairly well with fruit tree roots tend to be more horizontal
accessing different
use it cautiously
can heal things too rapidly
here
don’t forget to ask about comfrey as Patti as
Tell me about your first gardening experience?
How did you learn how to garden organically?
4
Tell us about something that grew well this year.
fro me one of the biggest differences I saw was cucumbers and apples
very different corps
doing a lot of applications of foliar feeder this year particularly the
ego ag products
accelerate
calcium
seaweed
different suppliers
not necessarily
spokesperson
do like what they do
saw really impressive results
more cucumbers that just kept producing
apples did extremely well
applications of calcium
right after bloom
absolute ton about plants and crops
how to increase the yield and maximize size
various foliar feeding
john kemp webinars
pretty
cucumbers did well
apples did well
cities are like petri dishes we have a lot of pests
apple maggot lie
coddling moth
decent harvest
talon clay
essential
other wise called surround
pest off of fruit
you know
one thing I observed
though some webinars
cucumbers
stopped producing for about 2 weeks in July it got so hot
plants basically shut down
not pollinate
don’t thing it had anything told ow with the insects
lull
proliferate
getting really weird weather basically beginning of fall
one nice bit of advice
planting and preparing for climate change
plant stuff that is a zone below and one above
plant for extremes cold and variability of weather
September of mine
week and half of high
Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?
let’s see
one thing I am excited building to try here is a cold frame
kind of the shape of a deep winter greenhouse
it’s gonna be cedar and polly carbonate
catch that sun at the end of the season end of the summer
carrots
kale
lettuces coming up
about to put the cold farm into place
nov dec
having them freeze
these big jugs
I’m gonna put in there
get from the greek groceries
fill t hem with water
extend the season a little
no fresh produce
I love
tend to do better in my garden in fall through spring
working though a problem
ascertain the issue
basically in spring
tends to go after little brassicas in
transplant
arugula over my life
in various gardens
is a little
growing arugula
in the spring for sure
sprout ing now
super cold tolerant
greens
you may not of have heard of
herbistella an Italian herb
thin
flat
tall
growing that a few times
continue to grow that challenging to grow
Tell me about something that didn’t work so well this season.
other example
polyculture of tomatoes
cucumbers
pole beans like a broad bean
grew everything too close
the cucumbers took over the tomatoes and shaded things a little too much
delayed ripening of tomatoes
keep the tolerances less
problems in gardening in urban areas
spreading things out a little bit more
poly
I like most things
that grates on me
wood chips
mulching under fruit trees
wood chips for
keeping weeds off paths to keep them from being muddy
drop them in a central location
find the time
filling the back of a sedan makes a bit of a mess
least favorite job
interesting you mention it
gets at the question of it
are any of our farms
carbon negative
challenge to not bring in
st
harvesting is quite fun
close to cooking
recipes and things I might enjoy
for example
one of the things I love
in June
Vietnamese soup called pho
thyme basil and cilantro
mint in it too
favorite meals
all of those head