A Mini-Farm in San Francisco

Faced with unplanned retirement, a gardener transforms a weed-choked backyard into a micro market garden that grows greens by the fistful.

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Summer Fog Farm begin as a uncontaminating - up task seven year ago , before an wound forced me to retire early from my caper on the Golden Gate ferries . The back G behind my flat in San Francisco ’s fog - bound Richmond District was so choked with weeds and brush I could hardly agitate my way through it . With the help of friends , I started clearing it out one day , and I ’ve never appear back . My next - door neighbour built me a XII redwood - sided raised beds that take up almost the entire fortune , and I planted them with whatever catch my partiality — mostly unusual lettuces and greens from Italy , especially sulfurous chicories and wild plants such as Milk River thistle and stinging nettle . Many consider these latter crops to be weeds , a ill-conceived panorama , in my popular opinion , but more about that in a minute .

An elderly French neighbor see what I was up to and invited me to garden her back 1000 as well , and so beganSummer Fog Farm . I betray the greens I grew to a handful of top - trajectory restaurants around the city , and , for a metre , it seemed as though my urban market place garden might blossom into a bona fide business organisation . At one point , I even took on a better half and contemplated a city - wide meshing of backyard mini - farms . But health problem have scaled back my gardening activities .

Today I ’m content to coax a lot of greens and a little supplementary income from my 30 - foot by 60 - foot back pace . For maximum production in this marine climate , where the temperature is rarely anything but cool , I trust on raised beds , wrangle covers , dumb plantings of strewing - seed blends , and the illusion of rock powder , my grease amendment of pick . If I have a competitive edge as a humble - time grower , it ’s thanks to my continued focus on common that even San Francisco restaurant have hassle finding elsewhere .

Trade secret : Grow uncommon greensI’m just a mile and a half from the Pacific Ocean , in a cool , moist microclimate where the challenges are draw enough lineal sun exposure , warm the soil , and ensuring adequate plant sprouting , to say nothing of slugs , snail , and mold . I do n’t even attempt such hot conditions crops as tomatoes , clavus , peppers , basil , and edible bean .

Instead , I grow coolheaded - conditions greens of every kind : radicchio , spadona , ceriolo grumulo , rustic arugula , puntarelle , dentarelle , red dandelion , erba stella , the list goes on . I also grow mâche , miner ’s wampum , and a number of peppery cresses . My emphasis on acid and wild greens turns out to be a winnings – win situation . I myself am enamored of grow , cooking with , and use up bitter green , and my good customer , Chef Reed Hearon of Rose Pistola , ca n’t eem to get enough .

Where to get to identify my beloved affair with sulphurous greens ? My female parent serve salads of escarole and frisée back in the heyday of iceberg lettuce , and after my father opened a French restaurant , I developed a taste perception for Belgian chicory escarole . When it came clip to found my raised beds , I naturally went looking for bitter greens .

The first chicory escarole I grow was ‘ Sinco ’ , from Shepherd ’s Garden Seeds ( this business sector is now shut ) . I was so proud of with ‘ Sinco ’ , I tell every fleeceable available from Shepherd ’s , literally . Then I dove into theCook ’s Gardencatalog for cutting chicory plant , spadona , and dandelions . I also ordered fromJohnny ’s Selected Seeds , Ornamental Edibles , andRichters . To my joy , bitter Green not only grew almost effortlessly in my back grounds but bear witness highly resistant to insects , slugs , and snails .

I hold open go , growing every blistering green I could detect , show about them in cookbooks , listening to chefs with Italian grandparents . From what I could gather , Italians use such greens beyond salads . They supply them to pasta dishes and soup , stuff them into ravioli and Pisces , pitch them on top of pizza . My involvement went on and on . The Holy Writ got around I was growing alien greens , and pretty shortly I received a phone call from San Francisco nutrient author Paula Wolfert , who has an overpowering enthusiasm for and an encyclopedic knowledge of Italian greens .

Paula encourage me to try stinging nettle and other wild greens , such as mallow , purslane , chickweed , and Milk River thistle . She also introduced me to my favourite catalogue , Fratelli Ingegnoli , from Milan . My neighbors downstairs spoke Italian , so they station in orders for me . Fratelli Ingegnoli offers a vast range of chicory and other greens , and , as I understand , they ’re a prominent , rather mainstream come company . I can only imagine what greens I ’ve yet to discover when I find the seed catalogue even Italians look at esoteric !

In the meantime , I ’d care to share a few of my favorite greens with you , a short - list heavy on chicories . They ’re all deserving trying , whether you ’re growing for market or for your own table .

‘ Castelfranco ’ radicchio . This is a heading chicory , and in Italian idiom , all guide Cichorium intybus are predict radicchio . This arresting , ruby-red and white variegate sort is my current favorite . The headland are huge and almost painterly in aspect .

‘ Selvatica da Campo ’ chicory . A supple fleeceable chicory that reckon a lot like dandelion , but has thicker leave .

Spadona . The Italians call this chicory lingua di cane , dog ’s clapper . It ’s very long-legged in my mixed beds , growing straight and tall , and is quite acrid . I harvest it young , as a cutting chicory .

Puntarelle . Little known in this state , puntarelle is a delicacy in Rome . Also a lot like dandelion , but milder in flavor .

reddened - ribbed blowball . Lives up to its name . I love the way this rhubarb - red - ribbed blowball wait in the bed and in a harvested intermixture .

‘ Biondissima di Trieste ’ chicory . Another K - riff chicory root , this one with smooth , globular leave , unadulterated for cutting - and - come - again harvesting .

Pampanilla . This is the Italian name for salad burnet . This repeated grows like unhinged in my garden and tastes like Cucumis sativus . It ’s blue - green leaves make it a superb decorative herb .

Cress . I grow three different cresses : curly cress , ‘ Cressida ’ , and the broad - riffle ‘ Ancho ’ cress plant . Once called “ peppergrass,”cress has an attractive hotness that work in sandwich or to offset meats like lamb or beef . Cresses are quick and well-off , and I reap several cuttings before re - sowing .

Stinging nettle . weary a dyad of gloves to glean this one , even when it ’s young . It ’s worth it , though . cookery take out the sting , and when picked young , this much - badmouth weed has the most exquisite feeling of all the greens I grow , something like a delicate spinach but tastier , idealistic for a soup or an inst sauté , or as a ravioli engorge .

Rock powder for vigorLike just about every gardener , I rely on compost to serve my soil retain its fertility . The nice thing about sell to eatery is that they ’re happy give me back in the form of scraps and leftovers more organic cloth than I give them as garden truck . It ’s a perfect agricultural relationship . In add-on to compost , I weigh on the pop effect of rock pulverization , also known as rock detritus or rock meal . Like Ca to the bone , rock-and-roll pulverization gives structure to the leaf . The stone powder I use is a humiliated and pulverized stone of volcanic and glacial origin . I first learn about it in junction with a grower for the highly tout Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley . The bozo used nothing but his own compost and sway powder , and his green goods was fabled .

The secret to this productive garden on a small urban lot is enriching the soil with compost and rock powder.Photo/Illustration: Marc Vassallo

I water overhead , usually with a hired man - held wand , and double in a growing cycle , I spray with a premix of smooth kelp and fish emulsion . I also sum a light dusting of sulfur because my land is naturally alkaline , and sulphurous greens like a morsel lower pH. Without the S , the green savor blander , grainy , washy , and limp .

The one affair I ca n’t garden without is row covers . I depend on these covering to warm up the soil , keep out insect , and assure sprouting . I prefer a nylon reinforced fabric called Agribon ( useable fromPeaceful Valley Farm Supply ) , which hold out tearing and wind hurt and come in several grades . I apply curved earth staple to secure the fabric .

scattering - sown blends assure divers planting and eatingI do n’t have time for “ everything in its place . ” I enjoy the simultaneousness of a mixed blend as opposed to the linear quality of words . The former mode is more eastern in conception , the latter perhaps more western . But my interest in mixed planting is more than a philosophic declaration . Random plantings assist me harvest an irregular blend of greens , full of surprise and pleasure you wo n’t in all likelihood witness in a commercial-grade mesclun mix . When I go out in the morning to pick greens , I never sleep with incisively what I ’ll find . I move around the beds , scissors grip in hand , snipping a little of this and a short of that . There are blending I number on , but then there is also the borage that self - seeds and fountain up unexpectedly among the chicories .

I seed a combination of pelleted seed and raw seminal fluid , depending on what I ’m after . I find pelleted , or coated , seeds in catalogs meant for agriculturist , such as the commercial variation of the Johnny ’s Selected Seeds catalog . Pelleted ejaculate is ideal for butter lettuces , radicchio , and other crop I require to head up , because the large seeds are easy to space decent .

My main thaumaturgy , however , is to sow in a blending of raw germ in a bottom . Sometimes I blend the seed beforehand and break up the mixing over the bed . More often I scatter the seeds one sort at a time so they ’re mixed in the bed ; this ensures against overplanting . The fast one to scatter - sow in seeding is a abstemious mite , which requires some trial and error . The right blending is also a matter of experimentation .

I ’ve detect that among the lettuce , romaine lettuce work best for scatter - inseminate blends because they grow upright , an idealistic habit for the crowded conditions they ’ll front . I grow ‘ Deer Tongue ’ , ‘ Freckles ’ , ‘ Diamond Gem ’ , and ‘ Rouge d’Hiver , to name a few . Curly witloof , dandelion , and frisée also boom in a crowd .

On the other hand , sure putting surface — among them , the French Batavian and butter bread and most escaroles and radicchio — need some room . After much dashing hopes , I ’ve learned to transfer these or at least to cut them to give each plant life fair to middling space . I ’m particularly fond of the French Batavian or summer frizzly gelt . They ’re a arrant combination of an iceberg or crisphead lettuce and a loose - leafed sugar . My pet Batavians are ‘ Sierra ’ and ‘ Nevada ’ . I also like ‘ Ermosa ’ and ‘ Cardinale ’ .

I do grow a handful of other crop in gain to lettuces and biting greens . Herbs and edible flowers I grow along the fence and in gravid pots on my terrace , close to the menage . And in the bottom with the bitter green and lettuces , I sprinkle Spinacia oleracea , chard , kale , broccoli raab , beet , green garlic , and parsley root .

With the greens , there ’s no question that their tone is strong , earthy , and more varietal when the leaves are larger . At a sure point , water self-renunciation also punches up smack . I treat my greens at the end of their life like tomatoes or wine grapes and dry farm them , withholding water for five or six days ( though I never let the plants wilt ) . The water system - stressed plants sputter to live on , upload more minerals . Once I give a sample distribution of my gelt to the checkout clerk at the grocery store , a unseasoned girl who more than likely had corrode crisphead lettuce all her life . “ How did you like the greens ? ” I asked her when I see her next . She said , “ They taste like the earth . ” I could n’t have hop for a better good word to my drive .

by George GutekunstDecember 1999from way out # 24

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