Walkways being built in The Spring Garden... And we have our own mint!

As can be seen from the garden map, there are three walkways in the Roadhouse Spring Garden, where people can walk around and see what we are doing there. Originally, they were just dirt paths, but we decided to built them into proper walkways, because surely that is a more feasible option for customers coming from the city - there's no need for anyone to get their shoes dirty. It also looks better, makes the garden appear more organized and makes everything more convenient. Anyway, the walkways are being built out of brick, which is pretty much the theme around here. As shown in the pictures below, the process is going on nicely and the walkways should be finish in a few days. They are going to be a bit wider than they were as dirt paths, to make it actually possible for people to walk around the garden. Basically, keeping in mind how the signs are going to be laid out, from the walkway closest to the restaurant people can observe the herbs and the radish; the middle walkway is for looking at the middle vegetable field; and the furthest one goes between the lettuce triangle and the strawberry way. There is also a walkway that sort of leads to these three walkways and leaves a small spot of garden between it and the wall – here we have parsley growing, and we will plant some lettuce there as well later when it’s good for it to be in a partial shadow. So much for walkways, let the pictures talk for themselves, and I’ll let you know when they have been completed:

Otherwise, the garden is growing well. Now the rucola has been partially planted as well, which is something our restaurants are really eager to have. Hopefully it grows fast! The plastic covers, which you can see in the pictures of earlier post, has been removed from the herb and lettuce plantings, as the weather is so worm already that we don’t need those. They will be put again to cover the plants in autumn, to extend the season as much as possible. Looking really closely one can see that there are already something coming out of the earth where there are herbs and cucumber growing (pictured, cucumber). Some part of pink radish has already been taken out, which makes it the first own vegetable we've harvested, and it is being served in the restaurants - more of it will be taken tomorrow or so. The harvested radish was already divided to our restaurants and I was unable to find out how much in kilograms we got it, but we made a deal with staff that from now on they will weight how much radish (or whatever) they get everytime and let me know – this way I can document clearly what we have and how much and when. So, anyway, everything seams to be going great at the garden and we are steps closer to our goals every day!

Now to the other subject – we have our own mint! This is something, I must admit, I totally forgot about, although I heard it mentioned a month ago or so. We have mint growing in two locations: in the courtyard of The Schoolhouse and right at the corner of the Roadhouse Spring Garden. It is actually the first thing on the left when “entering” the garden. The first harvest of mint was a few days ago, and we have already started to serve it in The Schoolhouse restaurant. Randhir, our creative chef, uses our own mint for four purposes:

- Crystallized mint leaves, served as sweets when handing the bill
- Mint jelly, served with lamb etc.
- Mint sorbet, served as dessert
- Mint leaves to give a kick to the fruit salad served as a part of continental breakfast

In addition to those four things, we also put mint leaves to the drinking water served to customers. Crystallized mint leaves (pictured) are mint leaves that are dipped into egg white and then rolled in sugar. In a little time, the sugar and egg give the leaves a chrystal-like appearence, hence the name. They look really cool and are delicious, and surely much more healthier than candies – it should be remembered that serving healthy options to customers is a part of sustainable food program. We used to give candies to hand out with bills, but now we have replaced candies with homemade crystallized mint sweets. Now which one sounds more appealing to you? Also, this way, there is no need to buy so much candies and that saves money and reduces need for transportation, in theory at least. We don’t a have mint in large quantities, just two small spots as can be seen from the pictures below, but according to our chef that is just enough for our restaurants, and little enough not to worry about the preserving part. All of the mint can be used fresh and all of it will be used, and no mint needs to be bought during the season. And that, my friends, is what sustainable food production is all about. However, our resources of mint are naturally seasonal and half of the year we do need to buy some mint elsewhere. We are, however, going to extent the season as much as possible by covering the plants with plastic in autumn. Besides, we don’t use mint much when it’s off-season anyway so no worries about it. One of the main principles of sustainability in foods is to use seasonal ingredients that are locally available, so seasonality is not a problem at all, although it does mean a bit more menu planning and other thinking.

Mint in The Roadhouse

Mint in The Schoolhouse

That's it for today. Thank you for your interest, keep tuned! And you are welcome to come and try our own homemade mint sorbert among other homemade sweets!