Freedom Garden at The Night Kitchen

Amy and I decided that we wanted to work on making the bakery more environmentally friendly. We do not believe we will save the world per se but we do see a benefit in the appreciation of life in general from the learning that this “Green” project will bring.

We bought some plastic pots for our first foray into our backyard flora project. We purchased some organic composted soil and some plants from the local farmers market down the street and set about planting.

Our staff helped us water and tend to the plants as the season progressed. Sarah Milici and Aires Thode were diligent gardeners and instrumental in nurturing the project along.Time passed and we found our potential bounty flourishing.

After starting on June 5 and finding burgeoning bounty by July 17^th we started harvesting our crop according to the schedule of the ripening vegetables. Amy used peppers, tomatoes and herbs in her soups. Alex Kujawa used the mint to make Ganache with essence of chocolate mint. John used the tomatoes, peppers, herbs and nasturtium flowers on his daily pizzas. We were all having fun with the discovery of what our labor was reaping. All through August and well into September we harvested. We let the cilantro go to seed and experimented with crushed green coriander seeds for soups, finely chopped nasturtium flowers and herbs (fleck) for pizza as well as red and white tomatoes for sandwiches.

We are very pleased with our first ever Night Kitchen garden and we will most definitely do another one next year. Hopefully we will have some beds built and demote the plastic containers to use for flowers and some aggressively invasive herbs like the mint (boy does it spread). We are already talking about beets, potatoes, turnips and many other possibilities. Problem is we are natural veggie lovers and our appetite will quickly monopolize our limited space. So, until next year we hope you all have fun with your own backyard gardens.