Gracious Chef Réne Bérard

In hot pursuit of cold rosé wines, my husband, John, and myself found ourselves in the fairytale region of southern Provence near the Bandol area. It is breathtakingly beautiful much, like the lower Rhône Valley with medieval hilltop villages and rugged rolling landscapes, with the blissful addition of the glistening Mediterranean in your sight.

We stayed in the hilltop village of La Cadiere-d'Azur, where some of the village's defense walls date back to the 13th Century still stand. By recommendation we stayed at the Hotel Bérard, a quaint family-owned and managed hotel that also boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant. In fact, father, René Bérard, and his son, Jean-François are the chefs.

In my research I noticed on their website, Bérard Hostellerie, there was a property in a garden setting, La Bastide des Saveurs, in which they offered cooking classes, sommelier food and wine pairings, and special events. I innocently asked if we could see the garden at La Bastide des Saveurs--thinking it was a grand vegetable garden. The tour was arranged and the next morning Chef Rene Berard personally met and escorted us the three kilometers to his property.

Yes, La Bastide des Saveurs was a grand vegetable garden or potager and so much more to my surprise and delight! It proved to be one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen, mixing herbs, flowers, and vegetables together. Typical of a potager is a focal point, pathways, and divided parts of garden planted in herbs, vegetables, and flowers. Arches of happy blooming roses billowed along the pathways. I saw one of my favorite climbing roses over and over in full glory, the lovely Pierre de Ronsard, or better known in the United States, as the climbing Eden rose.

Arches of Roses in His Potager

Chef Berard was so gracious to detail and explain how he used these herbs and vegetables in his cooking. Chef Berard speaks a bit of english, and I speak a bit of french, but we were definitely speaking the common language of "cooking from the garden." On this beautiful morning, the light and landscape added dramatic drama to this incredible garden. I thought to myself, this must be one step away from heaven.

Staked Spiral Tomatoes

Chef Berard showed us how he plants many different varieties of tomatoes, and how he successfully stakes them individually, and anchors them with end poles. I must try and find this tomato pole for next year's growing season.

Provence Fountain, Olive Trees and Lavender

Everything was spectacular about this property, down to the Provencal fountain holding court amongst the olive trees, lavender, and iceberg roses. I highly recommend looking into cooking classes at La Bastide des Saveurs. Chef Berard will customize cooking classes for a group of six or more. You can find more detailed information at Hotel Berard.

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I can't take credit for this incredible bouquet of roses. It was on our lunch table at the gorgeous Rose Story Farm Last spring I had the exciting opportunity to visit Rose Story Farm, a real-life rose farm in Carpenteria Valley just south of Santa Barbara, California. Rose Story Farm is a family owned and operated farm which grows 150 different rose varieties amongst 25,000 rose bushes. It has been on my radar since I first saw an article about it in Martha Stewart Living.

All of these roses are cultivated in soil, cut fresh, and flown all over the country for special events. As you can imagine the variety of roses grown at Rose Story Farm have to meet rigorous standards with very desirable rose characteristics. The mauve rose caught my eye in particular, and I learned it was the "Intrigue" rose. I love the color, and was looking for a great rose for my garden and worked my garden palette.

I was able to find the Intrigue rose and bought several for mass planting curb appeal in the front of my home. It is first of all, a truly striking rose which has small clusters of large, loose magenta blossoms on long stems. It blooms continuously from spring to fall. It is a large rose reaching 4-5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. It's dark plum-tinted foliage is an additional plus, and adds a pleasing color contrast to it's roses. It is  an AARS awarded winner. Here it is blooming to bloom for the first time in March in my garden.

  If you are a rose enthusiast, you must plan on taking a tour at Rose Story Farm. Try and visit the end of April, beginning of May, when the roses are at their height of bloom and beauty. Please share if you have visited Rose Story Farm. Please comment on your favorite garden rose.

I'm a firm believer in backyard composting. I love the idea of recycling what you have from your own garden, property, and kitchen scrapes into your own personal compost recipe. It is especially important to compost when you have backyard chickens. In fact, I really delve into this subject of backyard composting and backyard chickens in my book, Gardening with Free-Range Chickens for Dummies. See also my previous post, How To Compost In Your Backyard.

I call backyard composting a personal compost recipe of your life, because it is the layering of greens and browns, essentially by-products of your cooking, gardening, and property which create this custom compost mixture. My husband, John, and I have a small backyard vineyard. We use the grape pomace in our compost each fall. Grape pomace is the skins, seeds, and stems of the vineyard grapes after the wine making process. Grapes are a form of green or the fire that heats up the compost mixture, where the browns such as our chicken bedding, or rice hulls is considered the browns and fuel for the compost. Grape pomace heats up our compost to 160 degrees Fahrenheit, an incredible temperature for a backyard compost mixture. Composting with our grape pomace creates a rich organic material called humus, which will go back into our garden soil, and flowerbeds.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to visit Annie's Annuals and Perennials with my fellow garden bloggers attending the three day San Francisco Fling. One of the highlights of this three day adventure was Richmond east bay nursery, Annie's Annuals and Perennials. If you are ever in the Bay Area, make a visit to Annie's Annuals. A truly incredible nursery. Plants can be purchased online and shipped, too. While visiting Annie's Annuals, I noticed a sign and display, that grape pomace is one of her favorite compost materials.

This was the middle of summer, and not Halloween, as this sassy and colorful mannequin greeted you at the nursery entrance. I can only imagine how she is costumed this week, two days before Halloween!

Annie and I know a good thing, composted grape pomace. Try contacting your local vineyards in the fall, for possible sources of grape pomace. It is a great way to enjoy the colorful autumn season, maybe have a quick wine tasting, and purchase wonderful grape pomace for your backyard composting.

I want to share with you some of the exceptional places that I come across from time to time. These places are gems and not to be missed if you are in the area, or they could even be a destination. Most have a “garden thread” to them. “Places To Know” can be retail, restaurants, nurseries, and other. Whatever the place, expect the unusual.

If you are a gardener, and you are in Vancouver, British Columbia, you must visit Thomas Hobbs' Southlands Nursery. On a warm Saturday in late August, I stopped by Southlands Nursery, the renown nursery that has that special touch and magic to it.

Southlands Nursery has had extraordinary press over the years. To my surprise I did find Thomas Hobbs on site, attending to happy customers. He is known to be quite a jovial character with a quick wit. He warmly greeted and chatted with me, as gardening is a universal bond. Without skipping a beat, he started asking about his many friends in San Diego.

I have heard Thomas Hobbs' speak about his books and his plant passion when passing through Southern California on previous speaker circuit swings. I teased him that he is long over due for another visit.

Southlands Nursery is well-stocked with colorful French garden furniture, tidy rows of healthy plants, and incredible garden antiques and decor to tantalize you. The backdrop behind one of his registers was this clay pot mural masterpiece. Every garden room I entered at the nursery, could be center-fold photo in a top garden magazine.

It is quite clear that Thomas Hobbs' gathers no moss. He is an author, speaker, plants-man, floral designer, entrepreneur, and now a farmer. Four years ago he traded his beautiful ochre-colored Vancouver home for a life in the country on a 20 acre farm. We must all take lessons from Thomas Hobbs', on following your passions.

It just might be summed up in a "larger than life" caligraphy quote across a thick ceiling beam in his retail shop, "I ask not for a larger garden, but for finer seeds. --Russell H. Conwell

Please share if you have been to Southlands Nursery. Please comment if you have read any of Thomas Hobbs' beautiful books.

I want to share with you some of the exceptional places that I come across from time to time. These places are gems and not to be missed if you are in the area, or they could even be a destination. Most have a “garden thread” to them. “Places To Know” can be retail, restaurants, nurseries, and other. Whatever the place, expect the unusual.

On a recent getaway to the always picturesque Rivera-like town of Santa Barbara, California, my husband, John, and I explored the Urban Wine Trail in Santa Barbara. What a concept.

Located in an older, nearly forgotten industrial part of Santa Barbara, a mecca of small, creative and innovative urban wineries are springing up in what is called the "Funk Zone."  In former industrial warehouses, gutted tiny bungalows, and buildings that have had past lives, you will find a group of urban winemakers and wineries offering wine lovers a new tasting experience with artfully crafted wines from nearby Santa Barbara County vineyards.

We stopped in at a few, and were quite surprised at the range and quality of the wines. There are at least 15 wineries now on this Urban Wine Trail in Santa Barbara. Each an experience, as you set foot in the door. Municipal Winemakers, pictured above, is totally decorated in "industrial discard style" re-purposing file cabinets as behind the wine bar glassware storage.

Municipal Winemakers, 28 Anacapa Street, Municipal Winemakers. (tel) (805) 598-1896. Located in an old industrial building, and only open on weekends.

Kunin Wines, 28 Anacapa Street, Kunin Wines, (tel) (805) 963-9696. Located in a former World War II army barrack, now tastefully decorated in gray and yellow accent colors. Open daily 11am-6pm.

Oreana Winery, 205 Anacapa Street, Oreana Winery (tel) (805) 962-5857. Located in what once was an old tire shop, now transformed into a collage of winery, tasting room, and art gallery. Open daily 11am-5pm.

These are just a few of the urban wineries in Santa Barbara. Visit Urban Wine Trial, Santa Barbara and plot your next wine tasting trip.

Please share if you have been to the Urban Wine Trail in Santa Barbara. Please comment if you enjoy the wines of Santa Barbara County.

I want to share with you some of the exceptional places that I come across from time to time. These places are gems and not to be missed if you are in the area, or they could even be a destination. Most have a “garden thread” to them. “Places To Know” can be retail, restaurants, nurseries, and other. Whatever the place, expect the unusual.

Meet Kathryn, owner of Kathryn Originals, at the Saturday Vista Farmers Market in North San Diego County. She creates magical blouses, jackets, skirts, aprons, and more out of beautiful vintage fabrics. Original vintage fabrics that were once tablecloths, drapes, embroidered linens, and chenille bedspreads are transformed by her sewing artistry, into a beautiful piece of clothing.

Each of her pieces  are unique. She sews amazing clothing details, using thread colors, quilt-like fabric combinations, and vintage buttons. She carries all sizes, and styles. Her designs are perfect gifts for the gardeners in your life, year-round, and for the holidays.

If you can't make the Saturday morning Vista Farmers Market, Kathryn has her designs and creations available online, too, Kathryn's Originals, (tel) (760) 643-1127. Her line of original clothing made from vintage natural fabrics are all works of art in themselves. Stop by and see Kathryn, and tell her VintageGardenGal sent you.

What do garden bloggers like better than writing about gardening and plants? They like gathering in verdant places like Seattle, The Emerald City, experiencing new gardens. and joining the "sisterhood of garden bloggers" across the country. Okay, there were a few fellas in the mix, too.

This year's garden blogging conference, dubbed Seattle Fling, was a compilation of nearly 80 gifted garden writers who pen their passions about all things gardening. A "Who's Who" of multi-talented voices naming off plant names like a foreign language.

It is a diverse group, not just for the climatic regions they represent, but how they hail their expertise. Some are Generation X, with soon-to-be-released garden books under their belts. Some are forefront blog sensations who can proudly say they have almost a decade of posts and writing in their arsenal. Some are veteran garden writers and speakers, well known in this country's garden circles.

This phenomenon of garden bloggers and writers gathering together magically happens once a year, usually in July. Last year it was in Buffalo, New York, serendiptously coinciding with Buffalo's Garden Walk. Next year's 2012 event is tentatively planned to be held in Asheville, North Carolina.

Garden bloggers attending this year's Seattle Fling 2011, experienced a well-planned and orchestrated itinerary of private and public gardens, retail garden shops and nurseries, a David Perry photography workshop, West Seattle's Sunday morning Farmers Market, and a spoiling by garden-related sponsors.

Garden bloggers were treated to this unique concrete "ruin creation" by Little and Lewis in a wooded private garden. The concrete leaf fountain now moss-aged with water and time, was originally molded from an actual Gunnera leaf.

A trip to the picturesque waterfront Olympic Sculpture Park featuring 21 works by world-renowned artists was both captivating and breathtaking, capturing the essence of Downtown Seattle on one side, and the beauty of the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound on the other.

VintageGardenGal wishes to thank everyone involved in this year's Seattle Fling 2011, and embraces her fellow garden bloggers.

Whether you frequent farmer's markets, or you are lucky enough to pick your own edibles out of your kitchen garden, why not try and eat what is fresh and in season. Let the seasonal fruits and vegetable dictate your diet and recipe selections. Try creating your Easter Sunday menu from an abundance of these "in season" edibles.

For those of us in Southern California, here is a general list of what is splendid and in season for the month of April. This is a general recommendation, and is not all inclusive. It is a great guide for your trips to the market, farmer's markets, or visualizing what you could be reaping from your kitchen garden this month.

Asparagus, Avocados, Basil, Green Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Chard, Cherries, Citrus: (Grapefruit, Kumquats, Lemons, Navel Oranges, Tangelos, Tangerines), Collards, Cucumbers, Medjool Dates, Kale, Kohlrabi, Lettuce, Mushrooms, Mustard, Nectarines, Green Onions, Passion Fruit, Green Peas, Raspberries, Spinach, Strawberries, Tomatoes, and Turnips.

This photo was taken at the Vista Farmer's Market, one of my favorite North County Farmer's Markets, and one of my "Places to Know." Sunset Magazine describes it as "One of the best in Southern California." Saturdays, 8am - 12 noon. Worth a visit, and a treat to find local seasonal edibles.

Please share if Farmer's Markets are part of your shopping and menus. Please comment on your favorite farmer's market.

VintageGardenGal Tidbit Thyme...

Attention Chicken Lovers! Spruce up your chicken coop for VintageGardenGal's Annual Chicken Coop Photo Contest. Send in your photos this coming May!

Encinitas Garden Festival is Saturday, April 30, 2011. For more detailed information and tickets, please visit Encinitas Garden Festival.