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As Mick Kopetsky digs his spadeful into the mound of dirt mob along the kitchen - garden path , the smell of good , clean dirt rises along with warm compost steam into the morning gentle wind . “ confidential formula , ” he smiles , as he picks up a fistful of the earthy mixture and countenance it sift through his fingers , like the fine crumb of a pastry dough mixture . He tosses a shovelful between a row of frosty ‘ Cornetto di Bordeaux ’ escarole and red - fringed ‘ Regina di Maggio ’ lettuce . “ The garden just eats it up . ” Indeed , if the plush amplitude of organically grown produce he harvests year - round from this two - thirds - Akko potager is any indication , his recipe deserves a Michelin star .
“ What would you expect from a collaboration between a garden designer and a student at Le Cordon Bleu ? ” jokes Kopetsky , as he throws a glance up to the house on the terraced hillside overlooking the garden , home to Bieke Burwell , his eco - culinary confederate . Owner of MIX Garden , a landscape excogitation company in Healdsburg , Kopetsky also supplies organic , topically grown produce to a boniface of eating place in Northern California ’s Sonoma County .
create by landscape architect Mick Kopetsky , this kitchen garden in Northern California ’s Sonoma County was inspired by seventeenth - hundred French parterres . It admit a bounty of germ - grow edibles , including ‘ Paris food market ’ carrots , ‘ Rosa Biaca ’ eggplant , andheirloom tomatoesand Indian corn . notice the axes are exclaiming tip of cypress tree trees . Photo by : Barbara Ries . SEE MORE photograph OF THIS GARDEN
The etymon of his collaboration with Burwell escort back more than a decade , when Bieke and her husband , Brian , first buy the 28 - acre belongings in the vinery - rich Dry Creek Valley , west of Healdsburg , and were in the midst of construction . Kopetsky was working with the original landscape designer for the projection , Austin , Texas - based James David , at the time and came on board to oversee the installation .
In keeping with the modern , sportsmanlike - lined architecture of the house ( designed by Richard Beard ofBAR architectsin San Francisco ) , the planting plan in Kopetsky ’s helping hand has evolved into an understated admixture of drought - resistant bush and grass beneath a canopy of native oaks and Douglas true fir . step chiseled from blockheaded slabs of Lueders limestone wind through the brow gardens around the house , sneaking views of the valley of vineyard for which the Dry Creek part is known . A grove of Italian olive tree diagram across the courtyard from the front room access allow for enough fruit to press and bottle 10 Imperial gallon of organic golden - unripened oil a class , and the Syrah grape from a pocket-size vineyard are crush into some of the best local reds in the vale .
A folio 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 soil so rocky , a potager was n’t even part of the original garden design . But one afternoon , as Burwell and Kopetsky surveyed the property from the back terrace of the house , talk turn to their partake heat for food . Burwell ’s eyes fell on a stripped patch of grease at the bottom of the hill , next to the creek . “ I ’d love to turn white Asparagus officinales , ” think over the Belgian - born cooking expert , “ and endive . ” Kopetsky had always wanted to essay his hired hand at edibles , so they hatched a win - win plan . Burwell would pay for the drip mold irrigation system and infrastructure , and reap whatever she needed ; Kopetsky could test his gullible thumb however he wish well , as well as do the care , harvesting and marketing of the extra vegetables . Little did either of them know that a few years after they would be the steward of a plot so healthy and prolific that the edible asparagus and endive — not to mention the rapini peak , fava - bean pourboire and heirloom Lycopersicon esculentum — would be try after by the finest eating place in the vale .
Though the determination to create a vegetable garden at the bottom of the hill was part happenstance , it turn out to be the idealistic spot for the European - inspired parquet circle the two had in judgment . Enclosed within a unsophisticated wooden fencing paint to repeat the abstruse - regal trunks of the madrona trees on the dimension , the courtly geometry of the design is evocative of a 17th - 100 chateau potager . Vegetables mix with herbs and cutting flowers in rows beam out from a primal pea - gravel tract , with Italian cypress tolerate watch at the axes .
Kopetsky part everything from germ , most of them heirloom and open - pollinated varieties , including 50 kinds of tomatoes , 15 different lettuces and eight type of Italian garden egg , all cautiously selected for their flavour as well as knockout . “ Heirlooms help nourish garden biodiversity , and in my opinion , they just sample and attend serious , ” says Kopetsky . Indeed , garden - kind vegetable do n’t make his aesthetic or gastronomical cut . ‘ Mammoth German Gold ’ tomato are streak with red-faced , ‘ Tendersweet ’ watermelon open to reveal a deep - orangeness anatomy , and the ‘ Quadrato d’Asti Giallo ’ gong peppers have paries so crisp and duncical that each bite is almost thirstiness extinction .
Kopetsky refers to his chemical substance - free gardening practices as “ clean , ” a condition sometimes used in the agro - ecology Earth to emphasize the environmental benefits of eat intellectual nourishment that is local , seasonal and sustainably grown . He plants cover crops of fava bean to fix nitrogen in the soil , better with organic matter every prison term he plants and gets down on his knees to weed by bridge player , though the efficient drip - irrigation system keeps invasive culprits to a minimum .
Frequent helpings of organic issue , include grapeshot pomace , are the closed book behind the potager ’s bumper crops of summer squash and tomatoes . pic by : Barbara Ries . SEE MORE picture OF THIS GARDEN
Their collaboration has evidence so fruitful that Kopetsky was asked to plan and lean kitchen gardens for several other household in the area , among them the owners of the Farmhouse , an accolade - pull ahead eatery , inn and watering hole in nearby Forestville . “ I get laid the way Bieke ’s garden has develop from a connection between two people with a passion for solid food to include the local residential district in such a healthy , sustainable direction , ” says Kopetsky .
As with the Burwell garden , he sells the extra H.M.S. Bounty to more than a dozen local restaurants and caterers , including Dry Creek Kitchen , Scopa , Barndiva and Cyrus — all known for their accent on serving unused , topically grown food . “ Everything is pick the twenty-four hour period it ’s eaten , whether it ’s run to Bieke ’s kitchen or I ’m sell it to a restaurant . Nothing trip more than 10 or 15 miles . Even when food is grown organically , if you truck it a thousand miles to a supermarket , you ’ve pretty much pass over out the environmental benefits of it . ”
Even before the first seed were sown , Burwell tell Kopetsky she also envisioned a labyrinth near the potager . The connection was raw in both of their psyche . “ The vegetable garden make me acutely aware of the cycle of life and how the seasons travel along a uninterrupted course from birth to death to renewal , ” says Burwell . She often invite guests to take the air the one - fifth - Swedish mile path to the center of the labyrinth and back before dinner party , while she scald up a bowl of her famous dome dip , made from the creamy heirloom ‘ Marrowfat ’ bean grown in the garden . “ I find a beautiful symmetry between growing practiced , healthy food and walking through the labyrinth , ” she enounce . “ It ’s like an appetizer for the soul , a nourishing of the liveliness followed by the trunk . ”
EATING GREEN :
dirt : A level-headed veggie garden literally use up up undecomposed filth at a pace of approximately six parts soil to one part produce , which wee refill the soil an essential part of the sustainable growing cycle . Garden designer Mick Kopetsky advocate rectify the soil with constituent subject every time you establish . His mulch : a commixture of rice hull , cow manure , grape pomace and composted garden waste .
Seeds : Help conserve garden biodiversity by sowing open - cross-pollinate , non - GMO heirloom seeds . Some heirloom mixture of vegetables and yield have been around for centuries , and with honest reason — they excel at position flavor first . Take the next step in sustainability by saving seeds from the plant you grow for next time of year , or trade them with other gardener through a semen - substitution programme .
bide Local : observe local source to supplement what you turn rather than buying green goods that has traveled recollective distances to gain entrepot shelves . expect for a residential district food - exchange program , where you’re able to swop your bumper crop of tomatoes for a neighbour ’s fresh - picked maize ; backing growers closer to home by patronize a sodbuster ’s market or signing up forCSA ( Community Supported Agriculture ) ; or if you have space to grow veg but do n’t have the time or know how , take asking a garden pro to plant and harvest for you , like the fruitful human relationship between Mick Kopetsky and Bieke Burwell .
For more information on sustainable food praxis , heirloom semen , or how to find local farms and events , see to it outslowfoodusa.org , seedsavers.orgorlocalharvest.org .
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