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As Mick Kopetsky dig his shovel into the agglomerate of grease piled along the kitchen - garden path , the smell of good , clean dirt arise along with warm compost steam into the morning atmosphere . “ Secret recipe , ” he smiles , as he picks up a fistful of the down-to-earth concoction and lets it sift through his fingers , like the fine crumb of a pastry mixture . He flip a shovelful between a row of snappy ‘ Cornetto di Bordeaux ’ escarole and reddened - fringed ‘ Regina di Maggio ’ lettuce . “ The garden just eats it up . ” Indeed , if the plush bounty of organically get produce he harvests year - round from this two - thirds - Akka potager is any indication , his formula deserves a Michelin mavin .
“ What would you expect from a collaboration between a garden designer and a scholar at Le Cordon Bleu ? ” joke Kopetsky , as he thrust a glimpse up to the house on the terraced hillside overlooking the garden , rest home to Bieke Burwell , his eco - culinary confederate . Owner of MIX Garden , a landscape blueprint company in Healdsburg , Kopetsky also add organic , locally grown garden truck to a innkeeper of restaurants in Northern California ’s Sonoma County .
create by landscape interior decorator Mick Kopetsky , this kitchen garden in Northern California ’s Sonoma County was inspired by seventeenth - century French parterre . It includes a bounteousness of seed - grown edibles , including ‘ Paris Market ’ carrots , ‘ Rosa Biaca ’ eggplant , andheirloom tomatoesand corn . Marking the axes are exclamation point of cypress tree diagram . Photo by : Barbara Ries . SEE MORE pic OF THIS GARDEN
The roots of his collaboration with Burwell day of the month back more than a X , when Bieke and her husband , Brian , first buy the 28 - acre property in the vineyard - rich Dry Creek Valley , W of Healdsburg , and were in the midst of construction . Kopetsky was lick with the original landscape architect for the labor , Austin , Texas - based James David , at the time and came on display board to oversee the installation .
In observe with the modern , clean - seamed architecture of the house ( design by Richard Beard ofBAR architectsin San Francisco ) , the planting plan in Kopetsky ’s hands has evolve into an minimise mix of drought - insubordinate shrubs and grasses beneath a canopy of native oaks and Douglas true fir . footstep chiseled from thick slabs of Lueders limestone hint through the brow gardens around the house , sneaking horizon of the valley of vineyards for which the Dry Creek part is known . A grove of Italian olive Tree across the court from the front door leave enough fruit to insistence and bottle 10 gallons of constituent golden - green oil a yr , and the Syrah grapes from a minor vinery are crushed into some of the best local bolshie in the valley .
A leaf of Swiss chard backlit by the sun . The kitchen garden has been so fruitful that Kopetsky markets the extra harvest to local restaurants . Photo by : Barbara Ries . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
With a hillside so steep and stain so bouldered , a potager was n’t even part of the original garden design . But one good afternoon , as Burwell and Kopetsky go over the dimension from the back terrace of the house , lecture turned to their partake love for food . Burwell ’s eyes fall on a bare patch of soil at the bottom of the hill , next to the brook . “ I ’d roll in the hay to grow lily-white asparagus , ” mused the Belgian - born cooking expert , “ and endive . ” Kopetsky had always wanted to try his deal at edibles , so they hatched a win - win plan . Burwell would pay for the drip irrigation system and infrastructure , and reap whatever she needed ; Kopetsky could screen his gullible thumb however he wished , as well as do the sustentation , harvesting and merchandising of the extra vegetables . niggling did either of them know that a few years subsequently they would be the stewards of a plot so healthy and prolific that the asparagus and endive — not to mention the rapini flower , fava - bean tips and heirloom tomatoes — would be sought after by the finest restaurants in the valley .
Though the decision to produce a vegetable garden at the bottom of the hill was part coincidence , it turned out to be the ideal situation for the European - inspired parterre the two had in mind . Enclosed within a countryfied wooden fence painted to repeat the deep - purple automobile trunk of the manzanita trees on the property , the formal geometry of the design is resonant of a 17th - C chateau potager . vegetable mingle with herb and cutting peak in rows radiating out from a cardinal pea plant - gravel pathway , with Italian cypress standing scout at the ax .
Kopetsky starts everything from seed , most of them heirloom and open - pollinated variety , including 50 form of tomatoes , 15 different bread and eight eccentric of Italian mad apple , all carefully choose for their flavor as well as beauty . “ Heirlooms help sustain garden biodiversity , and in my persuasion , they just try out and look better , ” says Kopetsky . Indeed , garden - variety vegetables do n’t make his aesthetical or gastronomic excision . ‘ gigantic German Gold ’ tomato plant are streaked with ruby , ‘ Tendersweet ’ watermelons opened to reveal a thick - orange tree flesh , and the ‘ Quadrato d’Asti Giallo ’ buzzer pepper have walls so frosty and thick that each bite is almost thirst quenching .
Kopetsky refers to his chemical substance - free gardening practices as “ clean , ” a term sometimes used in the agro - bionomics earthly concern to accent the environmental benefit of wipe out solid food that is local , seasonal and sustainably grown . He plant hatch crops of fava noodle to fix nitrogen in the ground , amends with organic matter every meter he plant and gets down on his knees to weed by handwriting , though the effective drip - irrigation system keeps invasive culprits to a lower limit .
Frequent helpings of organic matter , including grape vine pomace , are the closed book behind the potager ’s bumper crop of summer squash and tomatoes . pic by : Barbara Ries . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
Their collaborationism has proved so fruitful that Kopetsky was ask to design and be given kitchen garden for several other families in the orbit , among them the owners of the Farmhouse , an honour - make headway restaurant , inn and resort hotel in nearby Forestville . “ I love the way Bieke ’s garden has grown from a connection between two people with a passion for solid food to include the local community of interests in such a intelligent , sustainable way , ” says Kopetsky .
As with the Burwell garden , he sells the excess bounty to more than a dozen local restaurants and caterers , including Dry Creek Kitchen , Scopa , Barndiva and Cyrus — all known for their emphasis on serving fresh , topically grown food . “ Everything is picked the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. it ’s eaten , whether it ’s blend in to Bieke ’s kitchen or I ’m selling it to a eating house . Nothing travels more than 10 or 15 miles . Even when intellectual nourishment is develop organically , if you truck it a thousand statute mile to a supermarket , you ’ve pretty much wipe out the environmental welfare of it . ”
Even before the first come were sow , Burwell tell Kopetsky she also envisioned a labyrinth near the potager . The connection was natural in both of their minds . “ The vegetable garden makes me shrewdly cognizant of the oscillation of living and how the seasons follow a uninterrupted way from birth to death to renewal , ” says Burwell . She often ask round guests to walk the one - 5th - mile path to the center of the internal ear and back before dinner , while she whips up a sports stadium of her notable bean dip , made from the creamy heirloom ‘ Marrowfat ’ beans grown in the garden . “ I find a beautiful symmetry between growing good , healthy food and take the air through the labyrinth , ” she says . “ It ’s like an appetiser for the soul , a nourishing of the look follow by the body . ”
EATING GREEN :
Soil : A healthy veg garden literally rust up good stain at a rate of about six parts stain to one part green groceries , which makes refill the soil an all-important part of the sustainable grow cycle . Garden designer Mick Kopetsky recommends amending the soil with constituent matter every time you plant . His mulch : a mix of rice hulls , cow manure , grape pomace and compost garden waste .
seeded player : Help preserve garden biodiversity by sowing open - cross-pollinate , non - GMO heirloom seeds . Some heirloom varieties of vegetables and fruits have been around for centuries , and with undecomposed reason — they surpass at putting tang first . Take the next step in sustainability by saving seeds from the plant you grow for next season , or trade them with other gardener through a seed - substitution program .
Stay Local : Find local sources to supplement what you maturate rather than corrupt produce that has locomote long aloofness to get hold of store shelves . Look for a biotic community intellectual nourishment - central program , where you could swap your bumper crop of tomatoes for a neighbour ’s fresh - break up Zea mays ; support growers closer to home by frequenting a farmer ’s marketplace or signing up forCSA ( Community Supported Agriculture ) ; or if you have blank to grow veggie but do n’t have the meter or jazz how , consider postulate a garden pro to establish and harvest for you , like the fruitful family relationship between Mick Kopetsky and Bieke Burwell .
For more information on sustainable food for thought practices , heirloom seeds , or how to find local farms and events , fit outslowfoodusa.org , seedsavers.orgorlocalharvest.org .
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