The French Laundry: Un Tres Beau Jardin

One of my most cherished experiences of the French Laundry Culinary Programme was a tour of their own fantastic garden, where they grow up to 30% of the produce utilized in the restaurant. In addition, that fine morning I was given a walk-through of the Peter Jacobson farm, a small plot just a quarter of a mile from the restaurant that provides some exclusive, unique, and utterly fantastic fruits and vegetables. I was shown the garden and farm by Aaron Keefer, a very bright and genial guy who farms the French Laundry garden.

I have a lousy head for plant names, and I took no notes, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Other than a few silly captions, I have no commentary. Enjoy.

The French Laundry garden is lovely at 8:00 AM.

The FL Lettuce patch.

The bantams feed on savoy cabbage!

A cucumber blossom, I think.

Gorgeous gold baby tomatoes.

Some kinda pumpkin.

Beet greens. Lots of beet greens.

A relative of the gooseberry, these ground cherries are delicious!

An unusual Andean tuber. Sounds amazing, must try to get my hands some.

Yet another Andean tuber, a bit like long jicama.

These lovely fairytale eggplants are delicious.

Brand new baby lettuces!

Microgreens.

Itty bitty wittle gweens.

Gosh, I wish I had some idea what flower this is!

I forget the name, but this plant was remarkable. It tasted like sea beans crusted with beads of glass. Fascinating.

At Peter Jacobson’s farm, a perfect pear looks like forbidden fruit.

A pink pearl apple. Just unbelievably good — crisp, moist, tart, sweet, and beautiful.

Just an amazing breakfast! A peach of a peach!

A gorgeous Italian plum.

Lovely figs, not ripe yet unfortunately.

Stunning plums.

D’anjou or similar?