A funny thought occurred to me midway through the organic gardening workshop I took last week up at Esalen: In recent years, we’ve turned a lot of chefs into celebrities or even, really, rock stars. And yet the gardeners and farmers – who are so important in providing the actual materials for that food – remain anonymous. I think that's too bad because, let's face it, I don’t care how good a chef you are, you can’t make a good caprese without a great tomato.

So, here’s to the rock-star gardeners, three of whom  -- Amigo Bob Cantisano, Shirley Ward and Wendy Johnson (pictured, from left to right) – led our workshop. All three are passionate and knowledgeable but also offer their own unique perspective when it comes to gardening, with Amigo providing the science, Wendy the art and Shirley the intuitive. The information they provided was amazing (if, at times, a little overwhelming) and could (and has) filled books. After awhile, though, some patterns emerged and I was able to coalesce at least some of the information into four categories that provide a good place for newbie gardeners to start (click "read more"):

It is hard for me to imagine that anybody who visits Esalen isn’t immediately struck by their gardens. They are, quite simply, spectacular. Of course, the location (on a hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur) doesn’t hurt. A year ago this week (just as we were getting ready to launch this site), I attended a workshop led by Shirley Ward, the Esalen garden and farm manager, and learned an amazing amount of things I could use both for GardenstoTables and in my community garden. Shirley is leading another workshop this coming week called “Timeless Spring: Groundwork in the Esalen Organic Farm and Garden” and, yep, I will be there. Her co-teachers are Amigo Bob Cantisano (who was a great guest speaker last year) and Wendy Johnston, who wrote “Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate.”

I hope to have a lot of new posts to share based on what I learned. If you have any questions you’d like me to ask while I’m up there, please let me know by sending me an e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In the meantime, those of you who haven’t seen the Esalen gardens can take a glimpse in this three-part video the farm and garden team made recently:
Esalen Farm & Garden 2009, Part One, Growing Through the Seasons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd3zvcuQwSg
Esalen Farm & Garden 2009, Part Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-hI0So89E8&feature=related
Esalen Farm & Garden 2009, Part Three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPMhdBwY9bM&feature=related

One day, my husband came home with a big bag of “weeds” and a big smile on his face. He explained that what looked to me like weeds was actually a vegetable. He had volunteered to help in the garden at the Zen Center and they wanted to throw them away. Back home, he explained, they use it in salads, sauté it with tomato and onions, or make a soup. The name he gave in Arabic was “barbeen” (which sounded a little like “berbeen”). We tried cooking it as a soup with tomato sauce and fried onions, and it was delicious. I was hooked. “Weeds” could be very tasty. We later found the very same green for sale at the market with the Spanish name “verdolaga” ("purslane" in English and pictured right), but it was always expensive. I later learned that Henry Thoreau swore by purslane as a nutritious, filling meal.

The next wild green he brought home is called “mallow” or "cheeseweed” in English. He called it by its Turkish name, “penjer”. This is an exquisite leafy plant that can be used in the same way as purslane, but I prefer to sauté it with onions and tomatoes or to make it into a soup. I have never seen mallow in the grocery stores, so I considered this a rare commodity. One Saturday after several days of rain, we left the car with the mechanic and walked to a library to spend the hour reading. On the way to the library there is a nice park where the grass had grown almost a half-foot due to the rain. Also growing among the grass in a big patch was some nice, tender mallow. We came back the next morning with some plastic bags and filled them. (Click "read more" for the rest of the article.)