My husband and I spend a long weekend at Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur for our anniversary every year, which we look forward to all year long. This magnificent property is situated on 100 acres which originally belonged to the Post family, one of Big Sur’s first pioneers, and served as a homestead and working ranch. It is situated on cliffs with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean on one side and mountains on the other. It is truly stunning.
One of my favorite excursions while here is visiting the vegetable garden, or ‘Chef’s Garden’ as they call it here. It is a whimsical and highly productive garden with assymetrically stacked stone wall planting beds and meandering pathways. Flowers are mixed in with vegetables, which are mixed in with fruit – all a little haphazard to me. Its organization is a challenge to my way of thinking about how vegetable gardens should be organized. Yet, I am always lulled back to this charming and enchanting garden.
Today I met with Nicole, one of the two gardeners, to learn about the garden. I learned so much more than I had been able to pick up on my own during previous visits – a reminder to self that I should always ask to meet with the gardener when I visit gardens. There were two main take-aways from today’s tour.
First, I will plant more variety of my vegetables next year. The Post Ranch vegetable garden has incredible variety, which is informed by the chef’s preferences. They have several varieties of eggplant, many of which I’ve never heard of, including a round variety from Japan and Little Finger.
They have many varieties of peppers, spices (pineapple sage, dill, oregano, mint, thyme, motherwort, 11 different kinds of basil…), apples, citrus plants, figs (Black Mission, King, O’Rourke), tomatoes and kale among others. There is an adorable tomato bush that has tiny round tomatoes on it that I’ll have to track down. I remember seeing them as garnishes on a couple of my meals, while eating here.
Second, I am going to collect seeds when I travel. This garden has an entire section containing plants that were generated from Japanese seeds that the head gardener’s girlfriend brought back from Japan. Most seeds were put directly in the ground and were perfectly successful. I had always been shy about doing this as I incorrectly assumed seeds from other places also required local soil and growing conditions in order to be successful. The first seed I’m going to track down is the White Aubergine I discovered in Greece.
This garden also had a few bee hives just beyond the vegetable garden on the hillside and a chicken coop – something I would love to have in my own garden eventually… In the meantime, I’ll have to rely on the honey that Vicki collects from her new bee hive!
Check out Post Ranch Inn, and certainly the vegetable garden if you happen to be in the Big Sur area of California!
