From Farm to Flavor Town

Ellen C. Wells

Most in the horticulture world would recognize the happy and smiling face of Jonathan Bardzik from many an American Nursery Landscape Association and AmericanHort event. As former director of marketing and industry relations for the organization, Jonathan kept multiple plates spinning constantly. Now he’s spinning plates—quite literally spinning plates—in a new life venture, and one not that far removed from the horticulture world he’s lived in all his life. Meet the new Jonathan Bardzik—cook, demo leader, author, storyteller.

Jonathan was born into horticulture, his family having opened a garden center in western Massachusetts the year he was born. His life ran the gamut of industry jobs from pulling weeds and working in the family garden center to landscape distribution and hand-tying B&B material. “This industry has been a passion of mine my entire life,” Jonathan says. “At the age of 30, having had my hands dirty for so long, I wanted to sit in an office awhile.” He transitioned into the more white-collar aspect of the horticultural world at ANLA and AmericanHort.

A Foodie Since Youth
Jonathan’s other love in life is food, and that love developed early on, as well. He credits his mother, the family business and their garden for his appreciation of garden-fresh produce at a very young age. His love of food took a more serious turn toward the kitchen around the time he graduated from college. He’d had a somewhat elaborate meal at the home of friends, and afterward realized he had memorized the pasta sauce recipe while he watched them prepare it. “I went away and starting cooking it for anyone who would eat it,” Jonathan recalls.
 
That summer while living at home, he agreed to cook dinner for his parents each Tuesday night. After one week of pasta sauce and the next week a meal of tacos, Jonathan found himself the third week with stacks of cookbooks planning extensive menus with ingredients he’d never cooked before. “I just fell in love with it and it stuck,” says Jonathan. “For most of the last 20 years, I have spent at least a couple hours each day in the kitchen.”

Turning a New Leaf
After a decade at ANLA and then AmericanHort, Jonathan felt the need to get his hands dirty again and in a different way. He started a “branding venture,” as Jonathan calls it, which began in July 2011 with live cooking demonstrations at Eastern Market, a local historic farm market in his home of Washington, D.C. Now in his fifth season at the market, Jonathan has given more than 150 live demonstrations and created more than 575 recipes for those demos, each created based on what is available fresh from the market that week.

He’s also finishing up production on his second cookbook, Seasons to Taste. Following on the heels of his first book, Simple Summer, this second book is a four-season look at not only farm-fresh food but also the people, the farmers and the friends who are brought together by sharing the harvest and its preparation. (The book will be available for the upcoming holiday season. Check an upcoming issue of the buZZ! newsletter for ordering information.)

Coming Full Circle
After leaving AmericanHort in 2014 to devote his energies fulltime to cooking, Jonathan now finds himself reconnecting to the horticulture industry in some innovative ways. The first connection is with wholesale grower Overdevest Nurseries and the company’s Footprints Edibles line of plants. “They wanted to create culinary inspiration for both their garden center customers and ultimately for the consumer, to bring the plants home into the kitchen and have some fun with them,” Jonathan says. He’s been working with Overdevest for the past year to prepare consumer inspiration programs including videos, live appearances and social media content. Together they have put on five live garden center cooking demonstrations this spring. “It was fun getting out in front of consumer audiences, staying close to the people who are buying and using these plants,” Jonathan says. He and Overdevest Nurseries will be at the IGC East Show in Baltimore this August to share what lies ahead for the second year of the program.

Jonathan is also working with the National Garden Bureau and All-America Selections. He is helping NGB promote the 2016 Vegetable of the Year with a video showcasing the simple treasures of the carrot. The video was officially released during Cultivate’15. For AAS, Jonathan will help evaluate and communicate the flavor profiles of the AAS-winning vegetables. They have partnered with a non-profit farm local to the D.C. area who will grow the vegetables for Jonathan. He’ll use the produce to develop custom recipes and film videos to share those varieties, their flavor profiles and some ideas for cooking them with the gardening public. “We’re asking what do these varieties taste like and depending on what they taste like, what recipe does this vegetable want to be?” says Jonathan. Look for AAS to promote these videos and recipes heavily for the 2016 growing season.

Why does Jonathan keep circling back to horticulture? Simply put, because he loves us and the work we do. “I believe that while cooking and sharing food brings people together at the table, it’s those people we cook for who draw us into the kitchen. I keep coming back to horticulture because I love the people it allows me to work with—the talented and passionate professionals—and the consumers we serve and inspire.”

Known for his creativity in both his horticultural career and in the kitchen, these three projects are surely just the beginning of Jonathan’s culinary connections to the industry. He’s sure to cook up something great.

With hands in both the horticultural and culinary worlds, Green Profit asked Jonathan for his suggestions to garden retailers on how to sell more edibles and extend further into the growing season.
Here are his tips:

Replacement plants. What types of annuals are you selling in July and August? The larger plants that customers are using as replacements or quick décor. Maybe they forgot to water while on vacation or they are having a backyard party and need some color. This holds true for vegetables. Offer veggies that are well on their way to producing. “Focus on crops that have short turnaround times,” Jonathan says. “Large pots of fresh herbs or tomatoes with small fruits already on the vine are going to be appealing for people who are worried they might miss out on a fresh harvest for the rest of the summer.”

Inspire. Look for ways to inspire people for what they can do with these fresh ingredients. “It’s one thing to put a pot of Thai basil on the shelf that looks gorgeous but it’s another thing to tell them they can infuse the Thai basil into some whipped cream and serve over peaches and blueberries,” Jonathan says.

Larger plants. With larger plants the customer can take that Thai basil home, snip some for that whipped cream recipe and then plant the rest into the garden for more of that delicious whipped cream throughout the summer. Says Jonathan: “Having something that is big enough to enjoy the satisfaction of the purchase and then turn around and be able to enjoy over the next few months is critically important to creating gardeners who are happy, successful and want to do more.”

Success with fruit trees begins with success with quick-producing vegetables and herbs. “Once they’ve got that immediate satisfaction taken care of then it’s time to start selling woody edibles that are going to have more turnaround to them,” says Jonathan. Also offering woody edibles such as blueberry and raspberry bushes that will have a small crop of fruit on a young plant will go a long way in helping the customer get excited to settle in for bigger harvests two or three years down the line.

Have a champion on staff. “The real key to success if you are expanding beyond your core lines is to have someone on staff who is passionate and wants to share that knowledge with your customers,” Jonathan says. Sure, there is a ton of information online that customers can research, but having an advocate on staff who is evaluating what’s sold on your shelves and sharing that information with customers is critical for consumer confidence.

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A wonderful recipe from Jonathan’s very own kitchen!

Fresh Herbed Tomato Salad

Serves 6 - 8
Not that perfectly ripe, garden-fresh tomatoes need any help, but this herbed vinaigrette takes them somewhere truly magic!

Ingredients:

4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs each chopped Footprints Edibles Genovese basil, Splendid parsley, Gigantic chives and Hot and Spicy oregano
1 tbs chopped thyme
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2/3 cup olive oil - the good stuff!
5 medium tomatoes, cut in small wedges
1/2 cup crumbled feta

Directions:

Place the garlic in a mortar, sprinkle with coarse salt and mash into a paste.
Add chopped Footprints Edibles basil, parsley, chives, oregano and thyme. Pound into a paste with garlic, adding additional coarse salt if needed.

Transfer herb paste to medium bowl, and whisk together with Dijon mustard and vinegar. Season with pepper.
Drizzle olive oil into the vinegar mixture, while whisking to form a creamy emulsion.

Taste vinaigrette with a tomato wedge. Season to taste with additional vinegar or oil, salt and pepper, as needed.

Lightly dress tomatoes with vinaigrette and toss with feta. GP