Lessons from a Restaurant Garden

Growing techniques that feed diners at Arrows will produce dinners for your family.

Launch Gallery

by Warren SchultzApril 1999from issue # 20

AtArrows Restaurant , the garden is always there . As you get , you see it in the window boxes bubble over with crisp , lime - light-green lettuce plants mixed with genus Nasturtium . You see it in the outrageous flowered displays in the dining room . It ’s on the menu , and on your plate , from appetizer to entrée . And as you enjoy the taste of the fresh , homegrown produce , you could gaze out the windowpane at the cool Green and bass burgundy reds , row after row , in the 3⁄4 - acre kitchen garden behind the eating house .

At the front entrance to arrows , edibles are combined with ornamental in a stunning planting . Under the kitchen windows , culinary and medicative herb share blank with lettuces and ornamental in the geometric beds , and windowboxes brim with more lettuce and nasturtiums .

Like many successful gardens , this one was born of necessary . In the spring of 1988 , Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier , chef and co - owners , open Arrows eating house in an eighteenth C farmhouse just up the route from the holidaymaker townsfolk of Ogunquit , Maine . Their classical country eating place soon began earning rave review for its cuisine . The married person believed in contain bracing local vegetables in their preparations . But that was n’t always gentle in Maine in the late 1980s . “ We were n’t very proud of with the quality of the produce we could get , ” Clark explains . “ And the specialty items — anything alien or different — just were n’t available . ”

They had the land , they had the need , so they decided to grow their own . Despite their limited knowledge of gardening , the garden was a success , correctly from the beginning . “ We began it in 1992 , ” Clark says . “ The next year , we realized the garden was too minuscule for our loudness of business , so we doubled the size of it . The twelvemonth after that we increase it by another third , and then another two - thirds . ”

In just as few years , the garden became an integral piece of the Arrows dining experience . It is now as much a part of the eatery as is the kitchen or the dining room with its wide plank floor and exposed beam . “ A fate of guests get early so they can take the air through the garden before dinner , ” says Clark . As they stroll from the restaurant through an archway and into the garden , they ’re like a shot fence in by waves of greens . From there they walk past beds buddy-buddy with herb or overflowing with edible flowers . There are tall trellises of tomatoes with bright annuals climbing enthusiastically over them . There are beds of eggplant bush with leathery leaves so green they ’re almost purple . And lettuces , in more flesh , texture , and shade of gullible and cherry than the owners ever ideate .

Maximizing the harvestIt ’s all as neat and neat as a video display garden . But in reality this is a work miniskirt - farm , providing most of the vegetables to a kitchen that feed 600 people a week , from April through November . This may be the ultimate test of a kitchen garden . There ’s no margin for error , no room for ragged crops . It must equilibrize productivity , taste sensation , innovation , and mantrap .

Starting seeded player in cubicle packs reserve exact spacing of plant , eliminating the need for thinning , and also permits having play with planting patterns ( see the bed in the foreground of the pic ) .

The underlying structure of the garden is rectangles and correct slant . But the planting system and the shapes and colors and texture seem to break through those boundaries . The garden is lay out in parallel , Sir Henry Wood - sided beds , 24 animal foot long , and 3 or 4 foot full . Each is subdivided into 6 - substructure - farsighted sections , which question gardener Marcia MacDonald calls boxes . “ I lie with the boxes , ” she says , “ because they look lovely — clean and crisp — and they allow us a quite a little of control over the crops . ” They form the spine of her reliable production system of rules . Do n’t let the garden ’s beauty fool you . This place is all business enterprise .

Marcia has design a system that keeps the garden productive , simplifies programing , and helps keep the garden sweet and beautiful day after day . She works hard to eliminate as many variables as potential , and treats every gardening day as though it ’s the first twenty-four hour period of the season .

At the Arrows garden , Marcia ca n’t allow summer doldrums or autumn negligence to take root . So she does no direct sowing in the garden — ever . Every cum is get indoors , under lights , where temperature , light source , water , and humidity can be hold . She bulge out the seeds in a sterilized soil mix in cell battalion , 72 jail cell , each about 1⁄2 inch square . “ The nice thing is that you get one plant per cell , and they can go decently from there into the garden , ” she says . “ No cutting is want . ”

From March until September , Marcia has something to inseminate almost every eventide at home . She starts a crop of a popular potpourri every two week . After sowing the seeds , Marcia puts the flatbed under lights immediately . “ Most people do n’t understand that seedlings need an incredible amount of light — up to 16 hours a day , ” she says . “ Putting them in a cheery windowsill just wo n’t do it . ”

When the seedlings sprout , she flow them Sea Cure liquidness seaweed and Roots Plus , an organically based fertiliser . After about two weeks under igniter , the coddling is over . It ’s out to the greenhouse for a short stay before they go into the ground . “ The minute they hit the greenhouse they go softheaded , ” she say . Of course , not every gardener is blessed with a glasshouse , but Marcia say a cold frame do a good substitute . Failing that , a shadowed , protect spot under a tree diagram in the summer will do .

After two weeks in the greenhouse , the seedlings are quick for the garden , provided the garden is quick for them . As soon as a box has been harvested , she transplant the seedling direct into the rich , friable soil . By transpose rather than direct sowing , she says , “ We get perfect emplacement and upright air circulation . It ’s loose for us , and it look beautiful . ” Four weeks later , the pelf is quick to glean , and by then there ’s a impudent crop wait in the glasshouse .

Production can be beautifulThis strict authorities , along with good soil , not only keeps the garden productive , but avail keep it beautiful as well . Crops never mill around past their heyday in the garden . “ When you ’re gardening organically , it ’s very significant to get affair out so nothing rot , ” Marcia says . And tidy plants are undecomposed looking works . It does n’t count how much think you ’ve apply to design , how you ’ve arrange your bottom , or how smartly you ’ve incorporate different colors and texture — if the plants are ragged the garden wo n’t look estimable .

Working with establish plants , rather than seeds , make it easyto make designs in the beds with different colouring and leaf forms . “ The fun part of using cell packs is they make it easy to create designs of stripes or circles or any shape , ” Marcia says . “ I call it lettuce art , and the bottom is my canvas . For instance , I always make a trademark arrow with a spiky ‘ Royal Oak ’ lettuce , and surround it with dinero of a dissimilar color . In some of the beds , I make stripes or waves of ‘ Red Merlot ’ . And we seek to grow showy greens in the front of the garden to make a pleasing visual presentation for the guests . ”

Of course , there ’s a lot more to the garden than green . The garden is a mélange of tomato , eggplant , peppers , leek , crush , edible prime , herbaceous plant , and much more . All are handle with the same originative hand . Marcia uses flowers as borders , rosemary and bachelor buttons along the aisles , marigolds edging a course of blueberry . She sees tomato — sometimes scraggly plants that other gardeners cover — as an chance to embellish the garden . “ We ’ll produce a ‘ Yellow Pear ’ or peradventure a ‘ Chadwick ’ cherry tomato plant up the tepee , then plant borage with its beautiful , edible down prime , around it . Maybe we ’ll put some ‘ Red Splash ’ calendula around the bottom , with an ‘ Alaska Mix ’ nasturtium or a ‘ Tangerine Gem ’ marigold . ”

Though the garden is only a few whole step away from the kitchen , keeping the two in sync necessitate a lot of cooperation between the gardener and the chef . Clark visits the garden at least twice a day . Every Sunday , he and Mark walk through the garden with Marcia , as they lead off planning the week ’s card . “ I state them what they can require for the week , ” state Marcia . “ What ’s determine , what we have a lot of . ”

Clark takes it from there . “ After I coordinate with Marcia as to what ’s available , Mark and I indite the computer menu around the garden . We have a daily menu so if we have a small crop of something we can use it for a twosome of days and then habituate something else .

During the off - time of year , Mark and Clark and Marcia sit down to make a list of varieties for the next year ’s garden . “ The bottom crease is it has to work well on the menu , ” says Mark . “ It always comes back to the kitchen . ” And Marcia never mislay sight of the why of the garden . “ It ’s really for the clientele , ” she say . “ They ’re catch the freshest , most beautiful , and wonderful - tasting vegetables they could ever get anywhere . ” Clark agrees . “ There ’s a discernible dispute in the taste of our food , ” he says . “ There ’s nothing like harvesting that morning and throw it on the computer menu that eventide . ”

The Arrows kitchen garden is a real - world trial garden , where craw are chosen for productivity , show , and taste . Head nurseryman Marcia MacDonald grow hundreds of varieties there , adding new ones every twelvemonth and wipe out ones that do n’t measure up . Last yr she grew43 different greens . Here are some of Marcia ’s favorites .

“ Of all the lettuces , my favorite is ‘ Samantha ’ , ” she says . “ It ’s a gorgeous chartreuse green with ruffled parting , and it has an enormous amount of taste . ‘ Cocarde ’ is another beautiful lettuce , a variegate spiky deer tongue type . And we always grow ‘ Red Salad Bowl ’ and ‘ Green Salad Bowl ’ . ”

Other regulars in the garden are : ‘ Sylvetta ’ , ‘ Astro ’ , and ‘ Rucola ’ arugula ; ‘ Osaka Purple ’ , ‘ Green Wave ’ , and ‘ Red Giant ’ mustard green ; and ’ medusan ’ , ‘ Inferno ’ , and ‘ Rossana ’ radicchio .

“ I love eggplant , ” Marcia say , “ Because the plant and the fruit are so beautiful . ” She grows 12 varieties , including ‘ Turkish Orange ’ , ‘ Violette di Firenze ’ , and ‘ Tango White ’ .

As for love apple , she always plants a good , New mixture , such as ‘ Big kick ’ , for productivity , and heirloom for flavor and feeling . “ We grow an tremendous number of heirloom Lycopersicon esculentum , ” she says , “ ‘ Brandywine ’ , ‘ Persimmon ’ , ‘ Green Zebra ’ , ‘ Big Rainbow’—the visual appearance on the plate is very important to us . ”

Many of the varieties mentioned here are extend bySeed Savers Exchange .

exposure : André Baranowski

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