Plumluvfoods on WICC ep 41 Gardening with Aventine Gardens Pete Mariano

Its spring time and gardening season so we jump in with Co-owner of Aventine Gardens Pete Mariano for some great backyard gardening tips, some great recipes and a few laughs 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Coming of installming a World of Sound.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Chef Pull on the mic making Hotstown Jeff Jeff Shotguns
my Son Life Cheftain in the background making new beats,
down talk Girls a peace, Lay us down any night,
can Marry conversation song.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
The Delights and bull Made Dishes, Street Footstal Sides These
Jeff Springs More Jim Nights to It Soon and podcast
Orever Schafs Jeff Benyon Me suck you all Forget Merry
conversation song on the Fast Say Sound of the Knee,

(00:54):
Chef Fum.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
And the Least.

Speaker 5 (00:58):
And the rest.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Oh yeah, ladies and gentlemen. Happy Saturday to you. It's
plumblove foods live kind of live on w i CC
hope you having a great Saturday. I'm joined as always,
Buy a good friend, Chef Jeffy, Jeffy. I always want
to say live because I feel like we're live.

Speaker 5 (01:15):
Damn I'm always live.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, I know you're live, but I mean like you, no,
we're live. We're live, We're live and ready to go live.
But the show chef show is not always live. Sometimes
we're live. Well, we're pretty live, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
Fair enough, fair enough, well listen live right now? How
about that Saturday, I'm alive three to five, We live.
Happy Saturday to you, that Jeffy, that it all clicked
in there.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Though I thought you were gonna get excited about you,
you're gonna go jump in there. Well, Happy Saturday by
welcome Plumbler Foods. Right here on w i c C
the Voice of Connecticut to Boys, Chef plumb Chef jeff
hanging out with you here for the next two hours
on the radio. Excited to be talking to you. Listen,
we come on this program, Jeffy, and we talk everything
from food to drinks, to places to visit, great restaurants.

(02:02):
But there's one thing that I feel like we don't
talk enough about, Jeffy. What's that Where the food comes from?
How do we get this food? Who are the people
that help people grow food, that make things happen? And
that was the plan for this particular episode. I think
it's getting close to springtime. Maybe people are planning gardens already.
Maybe some people are already growing things in small, little, weird,
cubby things like in my house, my wife has these

(02:24):
weird little like plastic containers with like a like a
almost like a to go lid on top of it.
With little lights and she's growing food in there, and
I'm like, this is the great what are we doing here?

Speaker 5 (02:34):
And oh she's playing seeds. You mean she's like, yeah,
started sprouse.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I mean, yours makes it sound so much easier than
I did.

Speaker 5 (02:41):
But yeah, well, well she's you know, we share.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
That simplicity is that we're trying to get out jeffiy
and my wife.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
No, we share the love of growing things.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
All right, well that's what's happening. But the tiny little
boxes of stuff that are in one of our rooms here,
and it's just hilarious that there's lights on these little
weird led lights. Iond If it's a special like, I
don't know, but I thought it'd be fun to get
an expert on this program to get everybody set up
for the springtime. Maybe they want to grow food, maybe
get some great tips. So we've got Pete Mariano from
Aventine Gardens joining us here shortly, which, listen, just sounds

(03:15):
special to say it like that, doesn't.

Speaker 5 (03:16):
It sounds very special?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
And all, you know, transparency, just to be completely transparent piece.
My brother in law love him very much, a great
human being and he's also a very very smart individual.
When it comes to sort of stuff. And the cool
thing about Pete too, is Pete's the guy. Like if
you ever say, when people say, hey, I got a guy,
they're talking about Pete, like he's the guy, Like, that's

(03:37):
the guy, Like I need somebody who can get me
a jackhammer to to get rid of this concrete. Well,
I got a guy they're calling Pete. That's the guy
they call. So he's just that guy that can do
all that stuff and he's happy to do it for
the most part, so it'll be fun. I thought we'd
talk about, like, you know, planting things, maybe a small
garden to maybe even planting things in the small little pots.

(03:58):
Depends if you're like in a city apartment, maybe can
you can you put things on like a window box
or something. I don't know. These are all questions I have, Jeffe.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yeah, it's like a pet of all trades.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, that's that's pretty good. I like that. We should
trademark that.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
I like that. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Let's jump into it. Ladies and gentlemen joining us from
an undisclosed basement someplace in Upper Fairfield County. We're talking
to a gentleman who may be one of the premier
fathers in the world, which is incredible. But he's also
a super nice guy, very intelligent human being and a
gentleman who, as our relationship progressed, has told me he

(04:36):
has about nineteen different diplomas in lots of different specializations,
everything from welding to zoology to biology. None of it's true,
but he did buy them on the internet. He is
one of the co owners of Aventine Gardens PEAE. Welcome
the program, Pete Veriano.

Speaker 6 (04:58):
An introduction.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
What's up, buddy.

Speaker 6 (05:00):
I'll do anything for the right price.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
That's it. That's it. Well I don't. I say it
jokingly but in jest, but almost like being serious though.
I mean, you're you're you're the guy like people like
I got a guy. You're the guy, like you're the
guy people will call for these things, right.

Speaker 6 (05:15):
Sure, yeah, I do. I do get those phone calls.
I actually have another guy that I call and we
call him mister Google. He's like the step up from me.
And it's just like if you don't know something anything
that I if I don't know something, I make to
call it this other guy and he's he's mister Google.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
But I have to think that for a lot of
our friend group, of our chef group. I'm kind of
the guy Jeff like people call me to be the guy,
you know.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
I would say that. I say, I always joke because
we have a group chat and so a lot of
people jump in there and they ask and I'll be like,
this isn't a Google It's like, this is a group chat.
This is this is where you ask us like questions
about you know.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Right, Well, here's the thing. So the idea here is
p is that we took an Internet test and I
turned out I'm in the top ten percent of intelligence
in the country, top top ten. So that's that's where
it all comes from. All that aside, Uh, dude, you
are very very proud of it. Avatine Gardens. You guys
make some amazing beautiful gardens from the Hamptons to you know,

(06:13):
all these small little places in Connecticut to you know, Uh,
where's it come from? How to happen? How do we
get here?

Speaker 6 (06:21):
How did it happen? It happened? Actually you have a
an integral part in the story of our business. To
my my wife, your your sister's sister, No, your wife's sister.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
There we go.

Speaker 6 (06:39):
Strange that would that would be a weird math that
does the math that doesn't. Your wife's sister had she's
an artist first and foremost, and she was working at
a nursery garden center type place and then started doing
private general gardening for a customer. And we're up here
in Lichfield. Actually, I don't don't confuse me below a

(07:01):
fairfa county. That's two. That's heck.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Theze that you could make notets on me.

Speaker 5 (07:10):
So she.

Speaker 6 (07:13):
Was working at this private client's house doing general gardening
and plum one of your early private chefing positions down
in Weston. They had asked if you knew anybody who
could grow a vegetable garden, and you suggested my wife.
And I was only kind of like part time laborer

(07:34):
for her at the time. I was, you know, her
her muscle. I would do whatever, you know, whatever heavy
lifting type objects are not objects, but heavylifting type work
for her. And so she that was the very first
vegetable garden that she started tending to was down at
your client down there in west and so thank you
for that. It got us going, and from then we

(07:58):
started taking on more vegetable gardens and started shedding off
at this point then I joined forces with her. I
one of those degrees. I was going to be a
science teacher in school. I love science or signed specifically,
and I had gone back when my son was born,
back to Connecticut University System to get a science degree
to be a school teacher. And then all of a sudden,

(08:20):
the business kind of took off. This vegetable garden idea
took off, and we kept growing and getting word of
mouth after word of mouth clients and started shedding off
all of the general landscaping to where we were just
focusing on vegetables, cutting flowers and kind of we call
it like an edible backyard, so you know, orchards, fruits,

(08:44):
just about anything that you can grow and eat or
cut for your flower arrangements is what we do now.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
And that's kind of amazing that you think about how
it grows. I mean, had it been a pretty big
step for you guys to say enough of the landscaping
and stuff. We got enough now it can focused on
what we really love, and that's growing and making food
for people, right.

Speaker 6 (09:04):
Right, I had, I had until this day, I refused
to touch any mulch because we meet so much mulch
back in the day that I've like, Nope, not we
no much not multi mult you know, we both had
a background knowing what we were doing in with vegetable gardens.
I learned from my grandfather who had a big vegetable garden,

(09:29):
and I would go to his place after after school,
after in high school, I'd go and hang out with
my grandfather and he kind of taught me how to
have a vegetable garden. Yeah, and she learned from her father,
as you know. You know, our father in law has
a beautiful garden, productive garden in his in his backyard.
And so ever since my wife your wife were little girls,

(09:51):
they've been around that. There's nothing like that fresh produce
that comes out of a vegetable garden.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Absolutely, and you have beautiful daughters, you and your kids.
Just in general, just growing up around that, I think
is a gives a different appreciation for where food comes
from that maybe not everybody gets now, So partly doing it,
what you're doing as well, is maybe also helping to
teach people who maybe don't have this on a regular
basis that they this is where food actually comes from, right, Like.

Speaker 6 (10:19):
It's such a mystery to people sometimes it's kind of
like it's you know, how does that happen? Or how
does that happen? That's a pretty simple process, right, like
nature in a way does it on its own. We're
just taking what is already existing in the natural world
and fine tuning it, right, like taking those seeds that

(10:40):
the plant will reseed itself every year, but we're taking
those seeds and specifically planting. I'm saving the best ones,
you know, the best varieties, the biggest producers, saving those
seeds from those fruits for the following season.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
But yeah, you're right.

Speaker 6 (10:55):
The mystery of how that food ends up, you know,
in our farmers' markets or in the supermarket shelves is
it's kind of it's missing in today's modern, modern world, right.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
I mean, do you feel like it's generational? Because here's
the thing, so I think about, like, I feel like,
you know, our generation kind of had a growing up
and there's a generation in the middle there that kind
of fell off on. But now, you know, my kids
and they appreciate that more, they look for that more.
We were just recently in France and they were noticing
like this is it's very different than what's in our
grocery stores, and they actually you know, my kids look

(11:31):
to go to farmers markets and stuff. Do you feel
like it's a generational thing where and Jeff, I think
your kids do it too. I mean you have a
daughter in culinary school right now who like they look
for that better quality stuff like that that could be
grown from a small farm or something like that.

Speaker 6 (11:44):
Yeah, I think once once you once you recognize the
difference in the flavor, the flavor and texture alone of
a Vegetable's let's let's take all you can take almost anything.
You know, a zucchini or red pepper or a tomato.
You know, you could do a blonde taste test side
by side, and one of them is just going to
have more flavor. It's just going to have more more

(12:06):
nose to it, right, it's going to smell more peppery.
It's gonna smell morenato. And that's the one that came
out of soil without all the stuff that it you know,
has when it's hit in the supermarket. Right like that
pepper is not bread for flavor and for for for aroma.
That pepper is bread to jeviety, Slowly write longevity to ripen,

(12:29):
slowly ride on a train, driving the truck and sit
on the supermarket shelf get dropped a couple of times.
Not brewis It's still be that perfect red pepper sitting
on the shelf, you know, for for for two weeks
or whatever. The shelf life is of a you know
pepper in the supermarket. And so yeah, once you've had
exposure to that, then you look for it. You know,

(12:51):
you're like, oh, I don't I don't want that. I
want I want this quality.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
And we as chefs, and you know, and Jeff, I
want to talk about the chef's garden here in a
second two. But like we as chefs look for some
of that best the best quality stuff we can get.
I remember being a culinary school in Peede. Maybe we
don't have to go on a high horse. And because
you and I both will stay on this GMO high
horse and our slapbox and scream and yell. When I
first learned that, you know, tomatoes for the most part,

(13:15):
that are in grocery stores that are kept cold and
all that other stuff, a lot of times they are
injected with specific salmon jeans so they can stay cold.
And ever since then, I'm telling you, if I ever
taste one, I feel like I can taste fish in it.
Is that weird? It's mental, I think, but I feel
like I can taste it.

Speaker 6 (13:33):
Perhaps, you know, I've explained the GMO thing because I
think a lot of people even that, you know, they
hear all these different terminologies and this that and the
other thing. And the best explanation I've heard of of
a of a GMO. Let's go back to the pepper.
Use the pepper example. The best example of why you
shouldn't want to eat a GMO pepper is that that
field is a barren field, right, just no cover crop.

(13:58):
That's a whole other subject in itself, but it is
just a dirt, you know, a dusty, dirty field. They
seed it and then they put synthetic fertilizers on it
so as that pepper plant is growing up there just
there's no there's no nutrients in that soil. They're giving
it synthetic nutrients to make it grow. Once the weeds

(14:19):
come up around that pepper, they spray everything in that
field with used to be round up. Now they call
it liberty link or some other, but essentially it's glycopate,
joys our gut health causes cancers, all sorts of things.
They spray everything in the field. Everything in the field
dies except for that genetically modified pepper because the bread

(14:40):
not to die from glycifate.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
That's crazy that pepper is.

Speaker 6 (14:44):
Most certainly taking up that glycipate in the soil and
having it in the plant.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah. I mean, listen, here's the thing. It's definitely efficient,
like if you're trying to grow, it's completely efficient. But
and Jeff, I've said this before, and I mentioned the
show several times. I feel like it's the it's the
it's the Jurassic Park rule. Right. We were so excited
that we could do it. We didn't think whether we
should do it, you know, right, I remember we said that, Jeff,
you don't remember it, and you remember in Jurassic Park.

Speaker 6 (15:11):
Jeff Goldblum, that's right, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yeah, well there were suicide they could make dinosaurs. They
didn't think whether they should do it or not, right,
and then what happened. T Rex is out there. It's
just crazy.

Speaker 6 (15:22):
Yeah. And and the other thing that like when you
do a nutrient study of of that red pepper versus
a red pepper grown in soil, like all of the
things that we're eating vegetables, for are supposed to be
eating vegetables for are lacking in that supermarket pepper interesting
abundant in the you know, backyard pepper in the in

(15:45):
the farmers market pepper in the CSA pepper.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
So and we can dive deeper into this, but just honestly,
between between us sitting here using the pepper example, growing
a pepper is not hard, right.

Speaker 6 (15:58):
Right, there's no real it's not it's not magic, you know,
there's no sort of it's it's way simpler than people understand.
And and and that's that's funny. You know, talked about
educating people on how things grow and how things how
it works. You know, we've had clients over the years
where we start with them in their vegetable garden and
then their kids come out, right, and so it's it's

(16:20):
a magical thing. Like we put these little beans in
the ground, right, like magic beans. Like literally we've we've
started with kids, you know that young like fairy tale
age young, and you put the beans in the ground
or the pumpkin in the ground, and they come out
when we're on site and check in and they oh,
that's yep, that's your pumpkin sprout coming up. Out of
the ground and they watch that grow and grow a

(16:40):
pumpkin and why is the pumpkin orange? Well, or why
is the pumpkin green? It's like, well, it's it's not
right yet. Like as that pumpkin continues to grow, the
pumpkin can tell turn orange.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
And it's kind of is magic.

Speaker 6 (16:51):
It's kind of magic, right, It's kind of like magic,
but in the sense of putting a seed in the ground,
keeping it moist and it will grow. It is not magic.
You spoke about your that your wife's got the little.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, the things growing where you're starting to start to
grow the plants before they go in the garden.

Speaker 6 (17:10):
Yeah, right, And Jeff, you mentioned that those are sprouts,
so like that's like, you know, the the garnish that
chefs love the plate, like like the little micro and
green garnishes and stuff like that. So those are essentially seeds.
Seeds grow in the dark, so you actually don't even
need the light on them. Interesting because you think about it,
seeds underground, seeds just getting heat and moisture and it

(17:31):
is doing its own thing.

Speaker 5 (17:33):
And so.

Speaker 6 (17:34):
There are lots of products out there where you can
you know, uh, you know, water, a little tray of
like radish seeds and then you get these beautiful little
like spicy radish things to throw on the sandwich. You're
throwing a salad or your chicken with little little you know,
and you eat it all. You eat the little tiny
he's only an inch tall, and you eat the leaf

(17:57):
and it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Well, Jeff just started his clients. So they just started
a whole micro green program, right Jef.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a we have a new gardener,
the sky Hunter. Shoutout Hunter if he's listening. Uh, he's
a great dude. And anyway, he started it for me.
I kind of told him I buy a lot of
We talked about the place called the Chef's Garden. I
don't know if you know about you know Farmer Lee.
He's this pretty famous kind of a farmer from Ohio.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
There's been on this program.

Speaker 5 (18:25):
Actually thirty he's been on this program. Third generation Farmer.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
What an amazing human being. By the way, just listen
to this guy talk. You never see a guy so
fired up about like Russell spouts in your life.

Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah. I was lucky enough to visit the farm and
like I got a tour them, Like we really got
to talk about like the cover crops and like the
what they grow in different fields during rotation, and like
it was like, really, it was really crazy to hear
the thought that goes into it so they don't have
to spray synthetic you know, fertilizers into the soil to
like condition it and stuff like that. And I when

(18:58):
I heard you say that, I was like, oh, wow,
like you're doing the same thing as formerly, which is
pretty awesome. That's like, you know, that's like a cool
correlation that like, you know, one of the best food
producers for chefs in the world is that's that's how
they grow their vegetables.

Speaker 6 (19:15):
Right, And that that cover crop does does a host
of different things. So one it prevents erosion, so you
don't have runoff from your fields where a typically tilled
to soil to earth field, you get a heavy rainstorm
and all these nutrients and all sorts of things literally
wash away, right, so that that cover crop is holding

(19:35):
holding your soil. The cover crop is a lot of
times the cover crops are are nitrogen producing cover crops,
so they're actually putting nitrogen into the soil things that
the plants that you're specifically growing need to grow healthier
and better, and it's keeping the soil cooler and and
so you have less stress on the plants when you

(19:58):
get hot, dry periods of of summer. So yeah, the
no tail regenitive farming cover cropping is something that had
is like a lost start that we had we've forgotten about.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
And it's not crazy that, Yeah, that's that's wild that
it was like, that's how we used to farm. And
then somewhere along the line we decided that using like
salts and different minerals to mask you know, not wanting
to be patient is kind of crazy, you know. I mean,
I guess there's only limited land, I guess, or they

(20:31):
just don't want to move it around. I don't know
the reasoning behind the.

Speaker 6 (20:36):
Right Well, there's definitely definitely a lot of mouths to feed,
and so there are people who argue that, you know,
you can't feed everyone on small farms. But then there's
the small farmers who say, well, if there was more
small farms in more places than we wouldn't have to
ship as much food from place to place. Yeah, you know,
every place to produce its own. To some degree, it's.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
A there's so much red tape on it too. These days,
it's just not simple anymore, you know, totally.

Speaker 5 (20:58):
Well, that's you know, it's funny because every time Plumb
gets back from Europe, I say that that's great to say,
because you know he's been the Europe a few times.
Every time he gets back from Europe he says, you know,
oh my god, the food there is so cheap, and
you know, it's so great. And I think it's because
there's a lot more small farming. It's a different the
way the industry there works is different, and I think,

(21:20):
you know, we could take a few notes from that,
for sure.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
We definitely could. We're talking all about farming and vegetable
gardening with our friend Pete Mariano from Aventine Gardens. So
we're gonna dig into some things you can grow at
your house. We'll talk about some food, some recipes you
can make with things you might even grow in small pots.
You never know. Making a garden is really easy. You
should all give it a try, for sure. But you
want a bigger garden, you got to make sure you
check out Aventine Gardens dot com. We come back, we're

(21:44):
going to dive into a little more. But our house
band has written a song for Pete. Of course they have.
That's what they do all the time. You're checking out
Palmlo Foods right here on the Voice of Connecticut WICC
stan Rye will be right back. Beats the man who

(22:11):
can fix sit on. You'll patch your fence or man
your wall.

Speaker 6 (22:21):
With those hands. Teammates, Magic group.

Speaker 5 (22:27):
Bills the world.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
We'd all love to know, Oh piece, you're everyone's best friend.

Speaker 6 (22:41):
Your heart is.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
A garden in never ends, growing.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Dreams and fixing souls through up.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
The times, Gates the good.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Times from.

Speaker 6 (22:58):
Real need road k with a smile, So why.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
You laugh?

Speaker 3 (23:04):
In life ever waning?

Speaker 5 (23:08):
Hide his garden's home. They boom and sing.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
In his world.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
E the weeds whearing.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
O.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
You're everyone's best friends.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Your heart is a garden he never is, growing trains
and fixing souls.

Speaker 4 (23:40):
Through the times, Gates the good times, Plumb love Foods
right on wy s s the Voice of Connecticut.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Chef Plump, Chef Jeff hanging out with you. What a
song that is is right on the money. How about that? Beats,
Pairs and Ice. We're joined by Pee Marianna from Aventine Gardens.

Speaker 6 (24:05):
How did they know? My heart is a garden that
just goes on forever.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Here's the thing. We're gonna send you that song so
you can play it for your wife. Like Liten, I
have a song written about me. Now you can let
her know. I mean it does say one thing, and
that you eat roadkill. And that's that. That is a
true story. But I don't have to waste food. I
get you only waste food. It makes sense to me.

Speaker 6 (24:27):
Yeah, you know what, I got three kids, and I
coach sports, and I run a business, and so I
don't have time to be a hunter. And so if
opportunity strikes.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Sure, why not, right, Jeffie would ever eat road kill?
Jeff you're upstate New York. Of course you have.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
Yeah, this is what I would saying. I have hit
animals and then eat them on purpose. No, no, no,
no no no. I didn't like turn into this turkey.
If you swerve that the turkey no into my car.
And then we took it home and we ate it.
We took it home and I ate it.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
You know, it was is not gonna be a good turkey.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
The legs were not edible, nor were the thighs. The
breast was uh tough, really hungry, tough, Turkey.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Okay, okay, where there there, it is there, it is Beat.
We'll definitely send it up to you. Send that song
over to you so you can have if you want it.
We're joining a by Pete Mario from Aventine Gardens and Beat.
The name is interesting, Aventine Gardens. Where does that come from?

Speaker 6 (25:34):
So my wife I mentioned before, she studied in Rome
for a year and one of her places to to
spend time in Rome, uh, seven hills or seven hills
of Rome. One of them is the Aventine Hill. And
on the Aventine Hill. This is something that some people
now have heard about. There there's beautiful orange groves and gardens.

(25:58):
I mean, it's just unbelievably beautif place, like huge flowering
rosemary plants. But there is a keyhole that you look
through this keyhole and it's framed by perfect a line
of trees, and Saint Peter's Basilica is miniature inside this keyhole,
like if you look through it, Saint Peter's is perfectly

(26:19):
framed by this keyhole. You know, hundreds and hundreds yards
away down in the center of Rome.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Is it on purpose?

Speaker 6 (26:25):
You think, oh, yeah, the monks, So the monks did it.
There's a there's a biblical verse something to the effective
it's easier for a rich man to enter the gates
of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle. The eye of a
needle was like that small pointy thing in the side
of a castle where they would be able to keep
invaders out by that one small entry point. Anyway, so

(26:48):
the monks who tended these gardens and built this gate
in this keyhole were kind of saying, like, on this
hillside is the actual beauty of heaven, right, the glory
of God and the things that He gets us, he
allows us to grow, and the fruits from the orange trees,
et cetera. That that's the that's the true heaven, not

(27:12):
this giant, grand basilica down in the center of Rome.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
So oranges.

Speaker 6 (27:18):
It was kind of like a poke in the eye
to to the Catholic Church in a way of their
grandeur and their their interpretation of it was this natural beauty.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
So so this is this is a very big story.
Is you decided like I'm going to take this and
make it our garden company. Well, that was my wife.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
She's again, she is she's she's she's artistic and she
is a wonderful writer as well.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
If it wasn't up to her, what would you call it?
Beate's gardens, Pet's gardens?

Speaker 6 (27:45):
Yeahs gardens.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Hum your buddy's plants.

Speaker 5 (27:51):
Grow stuff for you.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
That's it. That's it. Jeff Jeffy, your biblical guy. You
never tell biblical stories like that? Why not?

Speaker 5 (28:01):
Uh well, there's a lot of interpretations.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
All right, fair enough, fair enough? So Pete, if people
want to get in touch with you, Jeffy, how can
they do that? How can they find a peele on
them internets?

Speaker 5 (28:13):
Oh, well, they're going to go to Aventine Underscore Gardens.
If they want to see him on Instagram, first, they
got to follow them there. They can see where they're doing.
He's a celebrity gardener.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
I don't know if you realize this celebrity gardener. That's true.

Speaker 5 (28:25):
Yeah, this guy, he's out here, he's there, him and
his wife making things happen, travel and have tools, you
know what it is.

Speaker 6 (28:32):
And then they have had a couple of non disclosures
with certain clients, like the clients don't want you know.
So we're in Michfield County. We have lots of lots
of weekenders and lots of celebrities up in the hills
out in their Connecticut homes, and so we we have
had some non disclosures with people like they don't want
anyone knowing where they live and of course talking about

(28:54):
their garden.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
I mean we work in as private chefs. We have
that same kind of thing in our life. I as
things we can't talk about.

Speaker 5 (28:59):
You know, you man, celebrity gardener, that's right, celebrity garden.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Of course you go to Avantine Gardens dot com as well.
It gets more information. But Pepe, let me ask you this.
This is gonna be a weird question, but like what
if somebody who you know who isn't of that? You know,
that's ilk, you know, the the the high end client off.
If somebody who just wants to have a nice garden
in their backyard, will you help up that too?

Speaker 6 (29:19):
We do typically what we do in situations like that
is we'll do a consult, right, and so we can
give kind of lay the groundwork for someone who wants
to do it themselves, right, we can do Sometimes we'll
do phone consults, or if it's close enough, we'll travel.
We'll talk about locations with them, we'll talk about you know, obviously,

(29:45):
one of the biggest things that you deal with trying
to grow a garden in your backyard of any size
is animals, right, creditors, the woodchucks, the chipmunks, the deer
or in some cases the bears. So you know, we
kind of go over that with them. And we always,
especially if it's someone who's who's looking to do it themselves,

(30:07):
wants those you know, those those certain key summer things right.
You don't want someone to go pie.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Without having tomatoes zucchini, right.

Speaker 6 (30:16):
Keep fresh cucumbers from your own, your own vines, or
tomatoes or or you know, herbs for salads. We always
recommend start small, right, like go get yourself some small containers,
some patio pots. You know, they don't have to be beautiful.
We like things beautiful. That's you know, where we we
strive to be in our gardens, to build them and

(30:38):
and and maintain them as esthetically beautiful as they are productive.
But if you're just you know, after it and getting started,
start small, start simple, right, And and if if if
putting fencing up and going to that kind of length
and expense is not not you're not ready for that,

(30:58):
then keep the stuff close to your house, right, Like,
keep some patio pots up close to the house. You
can do lettuces. Really, you know that you can grow
almost anything in a patio pot. It's a matter of
what is practical and what you get the most square
footage per you know, for your produce.

Speaker 5 (31:16):
Right.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well, and I want to jump into that, like what's
easy to grow like that? But just round about I mean,
I know it's so it's there's so many variables, but
like a small garden for like a small house, who
you know roughly, I know, again there's so many variables.
But are we talking thousands of dollars? Are we talking?
You know, to get started? Like there's nothing there. We
want to put a small plot here to be able
to grow things on. Is it expensive?

Speaker 6 (31:38):
Well, obviously it all comes down to what you're Are
you doing it yourself?

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah? I just want you to help me get started,
Like you're going to get me set up here and
then maybe maybe you'll check back in with me once
per summer see how we're doing. Right.

Speaker 6 (31:51):
So, so I'm going to give you kind of the
basic layout and you're gonna you're going to go to
the home depot or the lows or wherever you body
your lumber, and you're gonna put up this garden. You're
gonna put up a little fence around it. No, I
mean something like that can be done fairly inexpensively, and
it doesn't you know, you can drop back even from
from from lumber, from wood and you know you've seen

(32:15):
those green like just bang into the ground and hang,
you know, put some put some netting around it. You know,
it doesn't even have to be metal netting. It could
be plastic netting. You know, we we try to stay
away from disposable things in our lives, stuff that you
use for a little while and then throw away and

(32:35):
it's in the landfill for for millennia. Right, But you
know that is the simplest version of a vegetable garden
is some you know, some green metal teapot tea steaks
driven into the ground.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
And some some deer chicken wire around it.

Speaker 6 (32:49):
You know, throw some chicken wire around it, right, and
then again staying in that that that lane of as
inexpensive as possible, take your shovel kind of break up,
remove the If it's a grassy area to start with,
obviously you want sun, right there's there's the photosynthesis. Is

(33:09):
that stuff we learned about way back when in yeah,
wentary school. Plants need sun, right, put the seed sun
to grow. They need a minimum of six hours a
day to to really be productive. And they need nutrients
in their soil, and they need water. So if you're
starting in a section of your backyard that's got grass,

(33:30):
get rid of that grass if you want. You can
cut the sod and just turn it over and that
grass will start to decompose underneath. What then I would
recommend is going and getting some organic, organic garden soil
and open up those bags and put a put a
layer on top of that, on top of that sod.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Can I till it? Can I get a tiller and
just till that?

Speaker 5 (33:50):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Does that make the same idea or is that not good?

Speaker 6 (33:53):
Well you could you could do that with the tiller.
Actually better off if you're going to, you know, continue
to make this a better garden. Get rid of the sod,
Put the sod someplace else. Everybody's got dead spots in
their lawn where they could use a little little touch
up of grass tilling. It's interesting this this probably goes
to to the farmer from Ohio, you're talking about, you know,

(34:14):
as we learn more about soil biology and what makes
a better micro or micro biome for these plants to live,
Tilling actually breaks up the channels that the bugs and
the worms and the life under the soil set up
for themselves. And when you till, it stir it all

(34:36):
up and they have to work to rebuild that soil structure.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Again's always good to do that.

Speaker 6 (34:42):
So instead of tilling now they suggest what is like
you use like a pitchfork or a broad broad fork
and it just breaks the soil, opens it so that
water and air can permeate down and then you're not
you're not stirring up. You actually get there's a there's
a thing called tiller pan where if you tilt much,
you're just compacting that soil, not allowing those microorganisms to

(35:06):
create all those pathways and channels and layers of life
in the soil.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
That you want.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
Right.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Wow, I never thought Jeffrey thought about that.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
No, I never have.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
It's kind of interesting. I was though tilling was the
way to go, like, turns the soil over, gets it
all right, plant. Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (35:22):
I was waiting for him to say when you said, like, oh,
what about a tiller. I'm like, yeah, that's what I
would do to make it fast.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
And then that being said, there are times where we
have we have established gardens in the middle of someone's
field where it's like, you know, a rough field that
just gets mode or hate a couple of times a year.
So the the the roots of that field, those field
plants are so thick, so strong, you know, four inches thick,

(35:48):
five inches thick worth of of heavy duty roots and wow,
and that that life that's clinging onto the surface there.
In situations like that, then yeah, going through to start
the garden with a tiller, break it up nice and small,
get rid of the rocks, kick out the stuff. That's
the way to start.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
And that's funny because our New England soil here, I mean,
I was just recently digging some holes myself in my
yard for some drainage stuff I was dealing with, and
the amount of stones and rocks that we have in
our soil is just it's remarkable, especially you dig down
eighteen twenty inches, like there's big rocks down there, you know,
and that you don't even know they're there, and they
can really be a pain in the butt sometimes they're

(36:27):
trying to, you know, put steaks in the ground or
dig it up. So tiller probably really makes it easier.

Speaker 6 (36:33):
But yeah, my wife has an amazing ability for like finding.
If she says, oh, go, you know, we'll have a
new fruit tree or something like that, or some sort
of plank going in our yard, She'll pick a spot
and it will have a rock right in that spot.
I will end up having to dig a hole three
times as big to get that rock out. I'm like,
can't we move it over one foot? No?

Speaker 1 (36:53):
No, we can't get the rock. Gotta get the rock out.

Speaker 6 (36:58):
We call those little rocks New England potatoes.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Is that what they're called? Got it so here here
in New England, though, I mean especially you know, I
think our soil is very nutrient dense. Is that is
that a is that a bad thought? Or is that
pretty normal?

Speaker 6 (37:11):
It depends on where you are, depends on what the
soil you know has been in the past, Like you know,
but our backyards like they're not far off right, Like
you could you could just make some simple amendments, some
simple composts bagged bagged dehydrated can manure at your your
local farm type store or or or home depot lows

(37:34):
can really jumpstart that soil.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
That makes a big difference.

Speaker 6 (37:39):
Yeah, it does make a big difference. It's just added nutrients, right.
You know, a lawn is a monocrop, meaning it is
you're essentially trying to grow just one thing in a
big area, and that one thing is all using the
same nutrients as the plants next to it, and so
it's kind of depleting the soil. That's why people fertilize

(37:59):
their lawns for someone to keep them looking at your
green because you know eventually it's depletes the soil of
the nutrients for that specific.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
I gotta be honest, I had no idea where to
get this information. Jeffy, this is a great info here,
Like I, Pete's like breaking it down, Like I feel
like I'm going to go plant something now.

Speaker 5 (38:14):
He's a scientist. I didn't realize its like a soil also,
like a soil scientist.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Soil scientist, right, I couldn't.

Speaker 6 (38:22):
Call myself a soil scientist, just like I wouldn't call
myself a farmer because farming is hard, hard work, brother work.
Shout out to the farmers out there, and respect even
more so to the farmers apprentices who work on the
farm for very low wages. We laugh when when we're
hiring our new employees, looking for new employees, we're looking

(38:45):
for a specific skill set, right, We're looking for someone
who can see the aesthetic, right, can see the product
that we're offering our clients, not to you know, to
sound you know, pretentious, but we're offering a luxury item
in most cases, right, we're offering you a beautiful space,

(39:05):
custom made in your backyard. And we are then in
most cases growing, harvesting, washing your vegetables, bringing them your
own into your kitchen, or giving them to your chef
for them to prepare for you. So we need an
employee who sees that vision of what we're selling to

(39:27):
our you know, our clients. But then you also have
to have the skill set of knowing how to grow plants,
knowing how to grow vegetables, knowing how to identify diseases
or pests or problems in the plants over the course
of the growing season. And you have you know, very
distinct periods of the year, like right now, you have
you know, as you guys know, we'll have one day

(39:49):
where it's seventy degrees and we're like, whoo, here we go,
and then the next day it's back down the forty
and snowing.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
Sure, and so it's that makes well. The other day
you were at the house here hanging out, we had
a little family gathering. You talked about you should you
want to bring me some ramps that you found, because
you have all these patches of ramps that you know,
this is a question I have for it. I've wanted
to ask you this for years, and I always forget
to ask you. We all find these patches of ramps
in our hidden spots that we won't tell anybody about,

(40:15):
and all these things, can we just plant them in
our garden?

Speaker 6 (40:19):
Well, they want a specific place to live, right, They
don't just live in any location. So ideally they want
sort of damp soil and slightly shaded. That's why you
find them, like you know, off the sides of.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
The road brook or a river or someplace where.

Speaker 6 (40:37):
Yeah, right, right, So if you have a place like
that in your yard that is similar to where they're
currently growing. If you go and and some some ramp,
people will be like, no, you never take the bulbs
because then you're you know, not allowing the ramps to
grow up next year. And but you can go and
make sure you dig deep enough to get the bulb.

(40:57):
It's a bulb much much much you know, like a
daffodil or a tulip bulb, or a garlic bulb or
an onion bulb. Right, it's so you've got to get
down deep enough to get the bulb of the ramp
as well as the little roots that are coming off
the bottom of it. And if you take that big
clump of soil with those ramps back to your house
to that similar ideal location that they like to grow

(41:18):
in and plant them, you can start your own ramp patch.

Speaker 5 (41:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Do people do that.

Speaker 6 (41:22):
Yeah, we've done that here, We've we've we've taken actually
we just did just at the other day. We just
dug some more and brought them into our own yard
so that we can you know, continue to run and grow.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
So it's one of those things that's so like, you know,
it's a specific time of year you get them, you
can only get it for like a month or so,
and people love them or hate them. It's like a
it's like a very polarizing thing to me. And then
you know, I've done everything from you know, like a
pesta with them, to a vinaigrettes, to you know, throwing
them on the grill. And I mean, there's so many
things you could do with them, But what is the
allure with them? Why is it? Why do people love

(41:56):
them so much?

Speaker 6 (41:58):
I think it's twofold. I think one it's the idea
of like, you know, I'm eating wild right, I'm going
out and I'm finding I'm finding wild plants to harvest
and eat, and I think it's that. I think they're delicious, right,
It's that first flush of green things popping up in
the woods. Don't pick the skunk cabbage because they kind

(42:19):
of grow in the same place the skunk cabine grows.
But that's that first green pop in the woods and
you're like, oh, yes, like spring is here, Like asparagus
is coming soon. The ramps are up. It's got that
amazing garlic flavor.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
That's why I love Gardener's Look how amazing he's talking
about making it sound all great, like it's this pop
of spring, all this stuff coming up. It sounds like
your favorite thing to make with ramps before we have
to run under break in about I.

Speaker 5 (42:46):
Love the pickle ramps. I mean all year. You have
to anything you can do to preserve a ramp, because,
like you said, they're only there for a month. So
I buy them in bulk and I try to like
pesto and freeze it.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
And yeah, you're going ramp hunting and found some. Yeah,
yeah you should go with down you Pete. What about
your favorite ramp recipe? What do you like to make
with them?

Speaker 6 (43:06):
We saw tam and just just you know, la lay
him next to a steak, or sometimes we'll mince them
and put them into a potato salad.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Mmm, there you go. I like that too. I had to.
I had to grill a steak and then I will
actually chop the ramps up and sautee them like sometimes
like a little salted onion with my steak, and so
the onions, I'll just do a little garlic and ramps
together and use that on top of my steak, almost
like a I don't want to say pesto, but like
it's beautiful, just it's awesome. It goes fantastic together and
they sauted up amazing, and you can get them. You

(43:36):
should get them. You're checking out plum Luve Foods right
here on the voice at WICC. We're joined by Pete
Marianna from Aventine Gardens talking all about spring plantings. It's
the boy chef Plump Chef jeff We come back. We're
gonna dive into planting at your house. I know we're
gonna do it this break, but we didn't get there.
But we'll be there the next break. Stand by, we'll
be right back and checking out Plumb Love Foods right
here at WICC. Umblove Foods right here on WYC. See

(44:17):
the Voice of Connecticut. Excited to be hanging out with
you here on a Saturday. We're hanging out, of course
with our good friend Chef Jeffy sitting in with us
as always, and our friend Pete Mariano, the co owner
of Aventine Gardens, learning all about some spring plant things
and what it takes to actually grow things here in Connecticut. Listen,
when it comes to a food show, Jeffrey, we got
to talk about how to make the food, where to

(44:37):
buy the food, and of course how to grow the food.
I think we're the only food show Connecticut that does that.
I'm gonna say that right now.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
Yeah, gotta be got all aspects. Yeah, absolutely, Tri State area.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Try to say are of course, no doubt about it.
You can check out Aventine Gardens by going to Aventine
Gardens dot com and of course our instagram Jeffy is.

Speaker 5 (44:55):
Where Aventine Gardens dot com.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
There's an underscore Aventine garden Aventine Underscore Gardens on Instagram. Yeah,
and just make sure you're still with me here. That's
all with you.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Break it up. Underscore breaks it up so you don't
have to one long.

Speaker 5 (45:09):
Aventine Underscore Gardens.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
I got the same thing. It's chef Underscore plumb on Instagram.
It's same exact same thing I got it. So listen.
We've talked a lot about how to prepare soil and
how to grow things, learning about what started the business here, Pete.
But like what if I'm I live in an apartment.
You know, I don't have a lot of space, but
I want to grow some things. I want to I

(45:32):
want to try my hand at maybe putting some pots
on my patio and trying to grow a couple of things.
What are some things that you think, in your professional
opinion or the high success rate thing, something that could
go out there as a first time gardener. I'm listening
to the show. I'm like, you know what, I'm feeling inspired.
I'm gonna go buy a bag of soil, a couple
of great pots and put them on my balcony and
see what I can grow. What are some high success
things we can start with? Now? I know certain times

(45:53):
of year things change. What about right now?

Speaker 6 (45:55):
Right now, favorite thing to put in the ground would
be peas. And it's not too like we've had a
really cold cold spring. You know, we're hopefully turning the
corner on the temperature. But you could head to your
little local garden store when you're picking up you know,
pots and soil, organic organic garden soil, or or if
you're putting it in a pot, I would recommend organic

(46:17):
potting soil. What it won't do is get too heavy
or wet. It has some ability to dry out and
they will probably have pea starts. So your pea plant.
The old farmer saying was that you plant your peas
on Saint Patrick's Day. But in this year, the ground
was still frozen on Saint Patrick's Day. Yeah, we found
we had a lot of lot of rot happening. But

(46:39):
you can get pea plants that are three four inches tall, right,
now you know in a little six pack flat at
the garden center. Put that into your your patio, your
balcony pot, and one steak and let it stake to
the side of the brick building. Let it stake to
the fire fire escape, and those peas will climb. They
are a climbing plant.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Interesting, So one little steak in there and just let
them climb with that plan. Do you have to tie
them or anything?

Speaker 6 (47:05):
Uh, they have their little tendrils, like if it's leaning,
they'll kind of grab on. You can help them by tying,
you know, a little little twine and tie it to
that steak. And but you know, like like back to
your Jeff Goldbloom, nature finds away.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Oh, nicely done. Another Jurassic Park reference. I love that's
that's great, great movie. That was too, a great book,
but like great movie.

Speaker 6 (47:30):
Those those tendrils will find something to grab onto and
and and up those piece will go.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
So they don't they don't last for long. They're only
there for a little while.

Speaker 6 (47:39):
Right, they don't correct their cool weather crop. We typically
start them again in the fall and if if the
temperatures work out right, we got a fall crop of peas. Either,
you know, snow peas or or snap peas, and if
we don't end up with peas, we end up with tendrils,

(47:59):
which is a a great addition to a salad. Sure
off makes a beautiful little little addition to a salad
or a you know, well, what's the what's the official
chef term for when you put it on the side
of the plate that you could eat it if you want,
but you don't have to eat it.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
A non functional garnish that I'm not a fan of.
I guess well, you.

Speaker 5 (48:19):
Can garnish food with things that you can eat, just
like you said.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
It's like songs that make sense with the food. Yeah, totally.
A sprig of rosemary just for no reason. No one
wants to eat a stick, Jeffy, don't get me started.

Speaker 6 (48:32):
Well, rosemary is a bad example, because that has such
a such a powerful flavor, right.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
It's phenomenal when it's listen, when it's in the food. Yes,
when it's just a side on the plate for no reason,
that's like eating it. I don't want to eat a
pine tree. It shouldn't never Why would you you don't
eat rosemary? Like, how about we don't put on the plate.
Then you can't eat it. It shouldn't be on the plate.
That's my that's my chef opinion, Jeffy. And we don't
see eyd eye on this, we haven't for years.

Speaker 6 (48:55):
So something that something that you can eat that we
like to put on the plate, and we typically grow
in the garden people, or edible flowers. That's something that
in the patio pots, balcony pots, there are lots of
flowers and the sturtiums or one that again, they go crazy,
they see themselves. So if you have a spot like
on the edge of your patio you put nusturtiums in,

(49:15):
they will drop their own seeds and more than likely
you'll get nasturtiums popping up next year on their.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Own and you're The leaves from anistartium plant are great too,
you can make it. They're a great addition to a
salad or even using an appetizer. Just back to the snow. Peace,
really the peace really quick, Pete. I want to ask you,
so if I take one of those one inch starters
I got from my Home center or whatever, I plant it,
how soon I mean it sounds almost like a childish
question asked till I can get peas.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
From it.

Speaker 6 (49:43):
A little over a month.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
I mean, that doesn't seem that long. That's not that
not that long.

Speaker 6 (49:48):
I used to I used to tell people when when
I first I've done, as you mentioned, I've done lots
of different things. And one of the reasons why I
love our business and our and gardening is because, as
in a way, it's sort of stress free. Because I
like to use this analogy. You want carrots, right, So
we send clients and menu. It's typically a midwinter menu

(50:13):
of and we have most of our clients have been
clients for a long period of time. We know what
their preferences are, but allows them to check off more
of this, less of this. We'd love this last season,
we do more of this, and it's all of the
things that we grow for them or can grow for
them over the course of the season. And I I

(50:34):
just lost my train of thought because I was thinking
about how beautiful the desertion leaves are.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
With that look. Of course, we're talking about how quick
things come back and and.

Speaker 6 (50:42):
How distress free. Right, And so you know, if you
want a carrot, I'm going to put carrot seeds in
the ground and along the way I'm going to thin
the carrots, because you plant carrots fairly densely in the row,
and then you thin out the carrots. And when you
thin them out, cut them. Don't try pulling, because if

(51:02):
you're pulling carrots out of ground, you'll disrupt the carrots
next to them. Just cut those greens right at toil level.
Throw those greens in your salad, those baby ferny.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Oh yeah, it was are great, right, delicious.

Speaker 6 (51:11):
Right, twenty eight days from now, you'll have a carrot.
And there's some beautifully stress free about that. Like I'm
putting the seed in. If it doesn't germinate, I'm gonna
set it again and water it better the second time around.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Can you grow carrots in a pot?

Speaker 6 (51:29):
You can grow carrots in a pot. That's one of
those things. It's like, you know, it takes up a
lot of real estate, you know, to put them in
a patio pot, but you certainly could, you know, just
for the experience of it.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
To see. If I'm on a very strict budget here,
I can't even afford pots. I can get a couple
of five gallon buckets. That would work too, wouldn't it.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
Hey, I've got a friend who's kind of like a
mad scientist and he grows and lots of actual people
grow tomatoes because of the tomato blight. And if that's
something that you've heard of, tomatoes get this kind of
disease on their on their leaves and on their plan
And so some people use fresh soil every season and
grow tomato plants in five gallon buckets and at the

(52:09):
end of the season they throw the dirt into the
compost pile. They throw the soil. My mother would say,
dirt is different than soil. Dirt comes out of your vacuum.
Soils in the ground.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Oh, I kind of like that. Yeah, shots and moms
on there there. That's pretty good shot shot the grammy.

Speaker 6 (52:26):
So yeah, grammy, so she will absolutely be listening to
the show.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Well, we love her, she's the best.

Speaker 6 (52:35):
So yeah, so that's that is absolutely Yeah, five gallon,
five gallon buckets and you know, organic organic soil in there.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
And uh, when you get a five gallon bucket. You've
seen people that get these buckets they drill holes in
the bottom of it, Like I see people doing that.
Is that so that that doesn't get like too much water?
What's that for?

Speaker 6 (52:52):
Yeah, that's that's a good idea. For some drainage, especially
if you're just learning and you know, and you get
a big rainstorm and you forget that you gotta those
plants around the back patio and now they sit in
water for a couple of days and they'll die to
too much water is as bad as too little water. Interesting,
So yeah, some holes in the bottom of that bucket's
a good idea.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
I think that's when it get stressful. I think that's
when it gets stressful for people. And again I'm talking
for people who don't grow things like you know, I'm like, oh, no,
too much water and not enough water. How do we know.

Speaker 6 (53:21):
The ground should the soil should be moist, whether it's
in your five gallon bucket or in the garden, you know,
it never wants to be too dry. There are plants
that are heat loving, dry soil type plants, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants,
you know, your your classic summertime sweet potatoes. They like hot,

(53:41):
dry soil with with intermittent watering. But for the most part,
the rest of the plants and vegetables that you're after
are we want to moist soil, right, So it's if
it's soaking wet and you can take a handful of
soil and squeeze it and water's coming out. You've got
too much moisture in the soil.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Okay, it's a good tasle like that.

Speaker 6 (54:01):
Subsequently, if you pick up a handful of soil and
you crumble in your hand and it's dusty and dry
like it needs water. Yeah, something back to that. You
know that metal tea post and chicken wire garden you
you've got in your backyard. You know, having having a
watering bucket to water seedlings, of course, and to give
things good water is important. You don't have to start

(54:23):
with an irrigation system. You don't have to go through
all that expense.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
You throw a garden hose, a little sprink three hours
sprinkler back there, couldn't you? You could?

Speaker 6 (54:30):
Yet there are certain plants that don't want water on
their leaves during sunlight hours because it'll lead to disease.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
Wow, that's now we're getting crazy, like really, but what.

Speaker 6 (54:41):
A great effective way to suppress weeds and keep moisture
levels here going in your garden is hey is a
thick layer of hay or straw.

Speaker 5 (54:56):
Chef.

Speaker 6 (54:56):
You know our father's garden he puts down just mulcha.
Now we live in a you know, a rural area
here in Lichial County. He buys it from a farm.
But you can go to your you know, your local
agway or tractor supply, get get hay or straw and
home people even now, yeah, home depot, and and lay
that down all over your soil in your garden. It

(55:18):
suppresses the weeds. The soil starts to eat up the
bottom of that hay, so it's actually feeding the soil,
feeding those those those those microbes in the soil and
regulates your your your moisture.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
So it's a seven dollars bail of Hey, it could
really make a big difference in your garden.

Speaker 5 (55:34):
Right.

Speaker 6 (55:34):
And when you go to plants, so let's say instead
of starting from seed, you're gonna buy some some cucumber plants.
Cucumbers are a climber, so they're going to want something
to climb up. They would work well on your balcony
as well. They do want to climb. But when you
go to plant those tomatoes or those peppers, just separate
the hay a little bit enough so where you can

(55:55):
you know, make your nice straight row and and see
the soil and plug that plant in, give it plenty
of water, and then bring the hay right back up
around it, and it keeps from drying out.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Jeffy, you got something you want to add to it.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
I was gonna say, so, what does the hey like
lock in the moisture?

Speaker 1 (56:11):
It like keeps it like what is it?

Speaker 5 (56:13):
Or is it like soak it up like a sponge
and then like let it out slowly.

Speaker 6 (56:17):
Well, what it does is when you get a good rainstorm,
instead of that evaporating back out from that, you can't
evaporate quickly the air quickly, it kind of locks that moisture.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Let me help, Let me help, chef, real quick, chef.
It's like when you leave a top on a pan
when you're cooking. I like, you know, when you when
your steam comes up, you put a top on it
and the steam hits the top of the pan, it
cools down, turns back into almost like a rain. It
starts to rain again inside the pan through it. That's right,
And that moisture says in there, that's great. I love that.
That's a fantastic tip. And you can even get a

(56:48):
little I don't think you to buy a bailet hay.
I think you didn't buy little packages of hay from
the grocery store, from from your home center that if
you had like some pots or some buckets on your
balcony or whatever, you could just put it right there
on top of it.

Speaker 6 (56:59):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
It's kind of like a simple, easy trick. I know.
We get bales of hey here for my wife or
her garden too, and we put them down every year,
and it does make a big difference, and you don't
have to get removed every year either. It can stay right.

Speaker 6 (57:11):
Right, it stays and by the end of the summer,
it's remarkable how much it breaks down and it's almost
gone by the end of the summer, you know, if
you've got a thin layer on.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Everybody loves tomatoes, Pete. We all love a great summer tomato.
There's just nothing like it. And I always think of
the summer like the season really kicks off with those
beautiful little orange and yellow sun gold tomatoes, which is
kind of like the first crop of tomatoes that come out.
I feel like a sun gold tomato is something that's
also easily growing in a bucket on a patio, And
I keep going back to the patio things. I just
I'm pointing out how simple it can be for people

(57:44):
to so start this process. You know, you want a
beautiful garden, you call it aviatine guards and make it
beautiful for you. You just want to start the process
and maybe get your hands wet and dip your toe
in a little bit, you know, putting a little bucket
or a small pot and growing some peas like Pete said,
to start, or small little greens to start. But I
feel like we can do tomatoes, which everybody kind of wants,
Like a sun goal is not a bad way to start,

(58:04):
right right.

Speaker 6 (58:05):
Yeah, no singles and there they are incredible growers. They
grow so vigorously. They as well, tomatoes are a vine
and if left alone, tomatoes will just creep along the
ground and and grow tomatoes. But obviously then you're you're
you're leaving the fruit low to the ground and you're

(58:25):
going to get the slugs and everybody else on. You know,
So having some structure for that tomato to grow up
is important. To grow vertically up is important. That could
be as simple as a little bit of that chicken
wire with you know, some steaks. Like growing and producing
it is more important than than the aesthetics obviously when

(58:46):
you're when you're first getting started, right, like.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Old broom handle, like you could, you could, you mean,
you can go all kinds of in directions with us
and things you could grow to make it work. And you're,
you know, a small little garden you're planting, whether it's
on a patio, a deck or something like that.

Speaker 6 (59:01):
Right, I've seen all sorts of you know, Pincher's pictures
of people using unique things as trellises for climbing, plants
for tomatoes, and you know, believe it or not, pumpkins, canilopes.
All these are vines, and so if you provide enough structure,

(59:21):
you can have canilopes hanging overhead from a from an.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Arch like it. It seems dangerous.

Speaker 6 (59:30):
Yeah, perhaps you gotta watch your head on those melons.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
That seems a little dangerous. Hey. I've seen people who
go out of town sometimes, and Jeff don't know if
you've seen this either, where they take wine bottles and
they may fill them with water and then flip them
upside down into their their planting boxes or whatever, just
to be able to provide some moisture throughout the summer
as they're out of town for a few days or
whatever that actually work. I feel like all the waters
will come out of it.

Speaker 6 (59:53):
Yeah, I don't know. I can't speak to that. I mean,
I know there's some planters you can buy that have
like water reserves in the bottom and so the plant's
roots go deep and there's like a little a little
shoot that you pour the water in and has a
reserve down in the bottom so it never does get
too dry.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
But there's a legit wine botles that people fill and
they just stick the wine bolls in the soil and
you know, a couple inches in the soil and leave
it there and go to town. It like slowly takes
the water out. It's crazy, right, Yeah, you know, there's
you can YouTube that you can look over.

Speaker 6 (01:00:27):
That and enjoy the wine and then have them keep
your tomatoes moist wire.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
So some of the things that he.

Speaker 6 (01:00:38):
Grow for our clients that are harder to find is
a lot of flowers.

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:00:45):
Obviously for us we start a lot of things from seeds,
heirloom tomato seeds, heirloom pepper seeds, particular varieties that we love.
There's one tomato called the Kellogg's Breakfast that has been
growing for years. This beautiful yellow orange tomato, very very
sweet tomato, very low acidity, so we save seeds from that.

(01:01:09):
There's certain peppers that we we have, you know of
love for that. We you know, you grow them once
for a customer and they're like, wow, that's that one
pepper that you had was so great?

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
What was that?

Speaker 6 (01:01:19):
And then we say, oh, that's an airloom. We've been
we've been saving with God, you'd like it. We'll grow
you more of those next year.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Hey, to find that term, because I think it's something
that you people see heirloom, like, you know, what does
that mean?

Speaker 6 (01:01:31):
So an heirlom is a variety of vegetable and it
goes for flowers too. I mean there's airline flowers. It's
it's anything that has been non modified and is like
a there's like heirloom breeds of pork and heirloom breeds
of turkey.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Right, these are like.

Speaker 6 (01:01:49):
The same breed that has been you know since the
colonial days whatever when you're talking like Berkshire pork or.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
So there are certain heirloom varieties of tomatoes that are
you know, you can buy sea packages now that they'll
say oh this is an heirloom this or an airlum that,
but you know, kind of the true heirloom tomato is
one that you select the biggest, you know, best tomato vine,
producing the best flavored tomatoes in your garden and you

(01:02:21):
save this literally save the seeds from that tomato.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
And repan the next year and then you just do
it over and over. And that that's an airloom. That's
an airline. It could be like your family heirloom tomato
that you've been doing. There you go exactly, that's like, see,
I think that's cool. I think that's really cool. Like
when you when you can do something like that and
it's something you've grown your family, you know, for years,
and you can pass it down. I don't know. I
just for me, the romanticism and that is incredible. I
just think it's awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
Yeah, yeah, I know there is. And there's to me
another thing that's that's awesome and beautiful. Butter vegetable garden
are the things that you put in once and they
come back year after year. And so asparagus is one
of those. I think most people love asparagus. Then everybody
loves the the after asparagus, you know, the yeah, well,

(01:03:05):
you know, you know the asparagus. P But anyway, asparagus
you put in the ground once and you will have
an asparagus crop that will continue to grow year after
year for twenty five thirty years.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
That's incredible. And like that first crop that comes out
of it, can you use that first crop or is
not as good?

Speaker 5 (01:03:25):
Well?

Speaker 6 (01:03:25):
You can, so you start, you start. What's great about
asparagus is that it doesn't get eaten by deer, so
you don't have to have that within your garden. You
can plant it along the periphery of your yard. It's
a sunny spot.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
You start, like the way it makes their peace smell
exactly exactly, Jeffy, I's all you had a question, buddy, Sorry,
I want to catch it for you forget it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
So when you say thank you, when you say when
you say you have a you plant asparagus and just go.
Is it like invasive? Does will it?

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Like? Question?

Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
Where will it go?

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Like?

Speaker 5 (01:04:03):
Will it?

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Will it go? Like wherever you direct it?

Speaker 5 (01:04:05):
How does that work?

Speaker 6 (01:04:06):
It's a good question. No, So you plant it. Imagine
like when you first start. It's called the crown, an
asparagus crown, and it imagine roots the size of your
hand with like one little nub in the center, and
you set it, and you set a trench, and you
set those roots in all directions and then obviously cover

(01:04:27):
it up, and there's certain things you plant along with it.
The first year's crop from that asparagus, it's best to
leave those initial crowns that come up in order to
strengthen the roots for a year two. Okay, something that
people don't know about asparagus is that if you don't
pick asparagus, each one of those little nubs that's on

(01:04:50):
the asparagus stalk as the plant grows. By the end
of summer, asparagus plants are three to four feet tall
and they turn into this beautif full like, very frondy,
flowy plant that is obviously then taking in the energy
from the sun and storing it in the roots For
next year's asparagus crop. They turned this beautiful tawny cover

(01:05:13):
with actual tawny color with little red berries on it.
And so we have used asparagus as a like when
I describe part of what we do as edible landscapes,
we will grow a sixty foot row of asparagus that
is partly for consumption and partly as a beautiful decorative
border to a vegetable garden. Again, it doesn't have to

(01:05:33):
take up real estate with inside your fence garden. It
can live on the outside kind of hide fencing or
create a buffer on the outside. So that's one of
those things that you put it in once and you've
reaped the benefits for years to come.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
It's incredible, man, I mean really, as there's so much
to it, and mother Nature is just incredible and she's
figured all this stuff out. And honestly, I don't know
you've ever seen as a great struck the Last of Us.
You ever watched the show?

Speaker 6 (01:06:02):
I've heard of it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
It's based off a video game and it's one of
those zombie apocalypse shows, but it's not really so much
about zombies. That's basically it's about plants taking over and
changing the way things go. And like when you hear
these stories about how just how asparagus, how it grows
and forms this beautiful fronts the store energy for next year,
like whoa, that just seems like a whole other deep
conversation there, like how do we how do they figure

(01:06:25):
this stuff out so quickly? You know, Like, I don't know,
it's interesting to me. I want to touch on something
else that's kind of and it's not your forte but mushrooms, Like,
are you a mushroom guy at all?

Speaker 6 (01:06:35):
I love mushrooms. I actually picked a an oyster mushroom
off of a inoculated log today.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:06:45):
I have dabbled in growing mushrooms.

Speaker 1 (01:06:50):
You can get great kids now on Amazon for growing mushrooms.
We are our friend Johnny Bernard, who I'll introduce you
to the summer. He's a great mushroom guy. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:06:57):
We have a friend too who really got into to
growing mushrooms.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
And maybe I want adition in my friend. You already
got one was.

Speaker 6 (01:07:04):
Growing, was growing oysters and king mushrooms and Chataki's and
Lion's Maine. And I keep asking them. I'm like, please listen,
I want to hire you, want to bring you to
my customer's gardens.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
They want absolutely. I mean, how hard to be to
put a log in the garden that's just growing mushrooms?

Speaker 6 (01:07:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So mushrooms, as you know, they you know,
they're more of a of a of a of a
shade grown right like a lot of mushrooms that grow
in the dark. Production mushrooms are grown essentially underground, or
in you know, very cool warehouses. But yeah, I mean mushrooms.
Mushrooms are one of those one of the most fascinating

(01:07:42):
things in the plant world. Every mushroom is connected to
every other mushroom on planet Earth right with its celium
in the soil.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
That's the craziest thing ever. But you're absolutely right. I've
heard all about that. We come back here on Plumla
Food We're hanging out with Pete Marianna from Aventine guards
We're gonna talk about some dishes that are fun to
make with vegetables you can grow right in your own backyard.
I know it sounds crazy, but it's the easiest thing
for anybody to do. And listen, making food's not rocket science,
it's really not. I promise you're listen. If Jeffy and
I can do it, anybody can do it. I promise

(01:08:13):
you're checking out Plumber Foods right here on w I
c C A Chef Plump Chef Jeff. We're joined by
Pete Marianna from Aventine Gardens. Stay right there, friends, We'll
be right back.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
You're stuck your slop they call them pop I'm ruling
it bare riding around and I'll beat up July.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
They don't pros want a cop, but they are just
not a way come up in the club, stacking the dust,
stuck in a lot like bull stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:09:02):
You would hurt of Mafo. Probably as.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
So good to see bros.

Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Want to have.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Plumb Love Foods right on w I c C. The
Voice of Connecticut, your boys, Chef Plumb and Chef Jeffy. Jeffy,
I feel like I want to go make a garden
right now. Like I'm feeling so fired up about growing
vegetables again. It's just it makes me excited for summertime,
in springtime. Buddy, I love it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:29):
I love the idea of making a beautiful you know.
I like the idea of gardens with with with an
artistic point of view. I think that's really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
No doubt about it. We're joined today for the entire
program for our friend Pete Marianna, the co owner of
Aventine Gardens and lit'sten. It's my brother in law. I'm
not gonna put it all out there, you know. Listen,
back in the day when I was doing the show
on another three letter station, they would never let me
have my brother in law. And they were like you
can't do that, Well, we can do that here on
w c C. So I'm happy to have you here, Pete.

(01:09:58):
And I'll tell you what honestly, brother, Yes, we honest
I feel like I've learned a lot from you.

Speaker 5 (01:10:03):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
This has been a very educational program. Well, thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:10:05):
I appreciate it. And I actually was your very first
callar on that other three letter radio station.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
Oh yeah, you were when we were alive, weren't you.
I remember that. I remember that. Yeah yeah. And they
were like, oh no, what are we gonna do? Because
they got crazy about stuff like that. So listen, we've
talked a lot about growing. We've talked a lot about
you know, making a larger garden, making a smaller garden,
how to prepare the soil, how to get things set up.
But you know, once you get the food grown, what
do you do with it? And we started talking this

(01:10:33):
whole last segment about growing peas as a high success rate,
especially this time of year. Something you can grow very easily,
whether it's on your patio and your deck, on a balcony,
in an actual garden, very simple to grow. But once
they grow, and once you get them, what do you
make with them? You got these delicious peas. I mean, Jeffy,
if you get beautiful peapods growing, how do you clean them?

Speaker 5 (01:10:55):
Well, first I usually collect them into a big bowl,
and then once they're in the bowl, right in the bowl,
I sit there and I break them apart and the
right in the bowl, and then just.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
You actual take the piece out of the pod.

Speaker 5 (01:11:10):
Yeah, you got to like kind of squish the pod
a little bit and pull them apart, and then they
kind of.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
You know, just knock a lot of hand motions here
for radio.

Speaker 5 (01:11:20):
Yep, that's what I was doing. So you you pinch
the peas and you use your fingers to knock them
all out into people.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
Yeah, actually get the peas out of it. So if
I actually want to use the pods, though, Pete, I
feel like I need to take that string out of
it when I'm doing it. Is that is that? I
mean always the.

Speaker 6 (01:11:36):
Piece and snow piece, yes, correct, chef. Yeah, different types
of peas. Some of them require you to have to
pull that little string on them, and some of them
some of the you don't. You can eat the whole
pod pot itself doesn't have a string on it. But
you know, the toughest part if you've got kids who
like vegetables, the toughest part is harvesting them quickly enough
that they don't still eat them right, just.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
To have enough for to put with dinner before they
eat them all right, right. One of my favorite things
to do with those is I like to take a
little shallot and I dice it up, and then I'll
mix the shot with a little bit of red wine,
vinegars and then salt, just the lightly pickle of shallots.
And then I'll take those peas and I'll cut them
in the pot after I clean them, so they're kind
of like little sliced pieces of peas. Toss them with
the pickled shallots, a little bit of vinegar and olive oil,

(01:12:17):
salt and pepper. What a delicious of little side dish
to have with even like a grilled chicken or a
grilled steak, just a really or you know, a grilled
port tunnel lines are my favorites. You just serve it
right on top of it. A delicious easy side dish
to make, especially this time of year with great fresh
peas from the garden.

Speaker 6 (01:12:34):
Yeah, it was great raw to me, like the best,
the best way to have most of the vegetables going
out of the garden is raw, and so doing light
a light pickle with them or running running beats through
a mandolin, so you get beautiful way for a little thin,
beautiful beets. And they have such a gorgeous you know,

(01:12:54):
you know their interior structure when you slice something like
that and then just putting those into a fresh, fresh,
raw salad with a little bit of greens. Mint, you know,
mint is one of those that you put in a
keep it in the pot for sure, because mint, like
you asked about the asparagus, Jeff, mint will take over everything.
You gotta be careful with the men.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
But what are delicious? And mint is by the way,
Mint is one of the things. I think it's a
little bit underrated. People want to put it with desserts
and put the little sprigs on plates, and that's really
that all they want to do with it. If you're
making any kind of Vietnamese cuisine, Japanese cuisine, mint is
a staple of those things, man, and it goes so
well with it, garlic, ginger, scallions, and of course you
throw some mint in there to finish it. It really

(01:13:34):
goes hand in hand and mint, like you said, it
grows like a weed. You can grow it on your anywhere.

Speaker 6 (01:13:38):
Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. It absolutely does. You know,
So if you're not having things raw, I love I
love you know again the mandolin zucchinis run the zucchini
through the mandolin run. Yellow squash not my favorite vegetable.
Big hit it, big hit of our family, you know,
I know them. A vegetable grower, I'm supposed to love them.

(01:14:00):
Yellow squashed me is like eating like kind of like
a cardboard exterior with a soft, mashy interior.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
That's hilarious.

Speaker 6 (01:14:08):
Well, it does not hit for me, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
The other day, Pete, I made a delicious beat slaw
and I took yellow beats and red beats and I
Julia and them are Mandolin them so they're like mag
sticks and two separate bowls. Made a dressing and I
tossed the red beats with the dressing so it was
all pink, right and that with the yellow beats just
kind of on top of it. I didn't mix it
heavily in there. I tossed it with a little bit
dressing and then put it kind of right on top

(01:14:31):
of it there, so they didn't because you know, they'll
they'll bleed together. But boy, on a table that looked amazing.
A little terra gone in with it. It was awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:14:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, raw raw, you know. So then the
step away from raw like simple grilled. Right, those egg plants,
the squashes on the on the grill in the summertime, Yeah,
beautiful grill marks. So here's the question, chef olive oil
or not to olive oil before you go on the

(01:14:58):
grill with them.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Yeah, great question, and I definitely have an answer for it, Jeff.
But we've been talking. I want to give you the
floor for a second.

Speaker 5 (01:15:05):
Vegetables. I always oil my vegetables.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
Kay, personally, Okay, I don't. It depends on what we're doing.
So for instance, like if you mentioned yellow squash before,
I feel like yellow squash is a very very moisture
rich vegetable to begin with. Right, I'm gonna salt them
ahead of time, let them sit in that salt, and
then I'm gonna grill them, and then whatever I'm gonna
like finish them with, Like for instance, if I'm gonna

(01:15:28):
put a little olive oil and just keep it simple
olive oil and vinegar on them, or balsamic on them, right,
I'm gonna toss them in it after it's done, after
I grilled it, right, give that that flavor after the fact,
you know, the olive oil is. I mean, I don't
think there's a right or wrong answer. I mean, you
think about a squash. It's very spongy to begin with,
absorb flavor as you're doing it, but I feel like
once you grill it, those pores almost kind of open
up a little bit and we're really really absorb that

(01:15:49):
flavor in more and more than sometimes. I feel like
if you toss it ahead of time in this vinegrette
or oil and vinegar and a lot ahead of time,
it almost it's too soggy once you grill it and
kinds of to fall apart and break down, or if
you would after the fact kind of absorbs that flavor
and kind of maintains a structure.

Speaker 6 (01:16:07):
Yeah, yeah, that's I've started going with the non oiled vegetables,
so as long as you got a ribon hot grill,
you kind of get that seared right away. And then
especially eggplant, like nothing worse than too soggy of the eggplant,
especially you're having the grilled vegetables at room temperature.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
Leaving your skin on your egg plant, taking it off.

Speaker 6 (01:16:27):
I'm leaving the skin on the eggplant. I go super
thinly sliced though, right, Yeah, And if you get it,
get it right, then it as it cools, the inside
still continues to cook a little bit, and then I
dress it afterwards. I'll you know, throw the olive oil
stuff on it afterwards.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
And that dressing is great afterwards too. And it can
be really simple. Keep it really easy and just buy
great salad dressing, your favorite sald dressing from the grocery
store and use that as you're dressing. If you don't
want to build something up or make your own, it's
really really easy. Jeff, you get these amazing I think
they're called fantasy eggplants, those little tiny ones that come
from the chef's guard and fairytail eggplants, right, have you seen?
These are very tiny but there it's like a whole eggplant,
but you know, size of a finger or something. They're beautiful.

Speaker 6 (01:17:04):
We have yeah, yeah, we've grown those. My My personal
favorite eggplant are the Asian egg plants. They're they're longer
and they're they're a skinny egg plant.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:17:14):
I find that the skins on those is a lot
more tender and not as sometimes you chewy, And that
Italian eggplant will actually give you like a little like
prickly on the lips, like it kind of oh interesting,
kind of gives you a strange almost like a numbing sensation,
like if you ever had skate wing and you end

(01:17:36):
up with that little like numb lip from skate wing, right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Right, right, right right, Jeff, you take the skin off
eggplant and you use it.

Speaker 5 (01:17:42):
It depends on what I'm making. If I'm gonna just
grill it, I like to leave it on because I
like to like a little bite on the outside of it.
But if I'm gonna, you know, make babak noosee or
something like that, I remove.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
It right and just take it off. Then what about
for you, like, have you have you tried? Sorry, go ahead,
Pete was.

Speaker 6 (01:18:00):
Still I would house some boba noose right now. That's delicious, simple, one.

Speaker 5 (01:18:07):
Of my favorite things to make.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Jeffy makes great boba noos. I've had, I've had said
babagan nose from him. It's delicious, all right. It's one
of the simple things too, Jeff. What's your recipeed? Very simple?

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
Well, super easy. First of all, if you have a
gas stove, it really helps. You can do it under
a broiler, but it's better on a gas stove. And
if you have like a little screen or something, that
helps the most. But you can also just with a
pair of tongs hold it over the flame for a
long time. Uh long tongs preferably. But you gotta char
your eggplant all the way around. And when I say char,

(01:18:38):
I mean like really.

Speaker 1 (01:18:41):
You burn it. You're burning the outside.

Speaker 5 (01:18:44):
The outside of it, like like so it's got like
a maybe like a quarter inch of burn around it.
And then throw it in a bowl and then cover it.
And while that's in there, you're gonna get out your tikini.
You're gonna get a lemon. You're gonna get a piece
of garlic and some parsley, a little bit olive oil, salt, pepper,
and then you're good, you know, tablespoonatini, a little bit

(01:19:05):
of olive oil, it peeled the egg plant, mix it
all together. Delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
It's amazing. That sounds fantastic, Jeffrey. I love that. I
feel like you're kind of getting lost in your recipe there.
You were getting so excited about it was amazing. Yeah,
it was excited. As far as the vegetables, man, I
don't think there's a here's the best thing about food.
I say this all the time, and you guys, you
boys can both for your comments. And I don't think
there's a right or wrong way. I think it's whatever

(01:19:33):
you like is kind of what works. If you're making
something and it's it's you know, you talked about whether
you oil the vegetables or whether you don't. If it
comes out delicious and everyone's happy with it, then you
did great. It works right. I mean it's hard to really.
I'm classically French trained, so there's you know, in my
brain there's you do it this way, you do it
this way. But that's you know, that's how I was taught.

(01:19:54):
But in my thirty years of experience, now that's not
always the case. It is what works for you, what
works the And you know, for instance, I made some
mistake for us at our family gathering the other night, Pete,
and like, you know, there's a lot of people who
would tell me the way that I did it was incorrect.
You know, you shouldn't put that on a pellet grill.
That wasn't at you know, rip Roaring seven hundred degrees
to grill it. I did it four fifty on the

(01:20:15):
pellet grill, and you know see the ASA got a
little smoke on it. It was delicious, wasn't it excellent?

Speaker 6 (01:20:21):
Excellent?

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
I mean how I just don't think there's a right
or wrong when it comes to it. And I think
when doing vegetables, it's kind of the same thing. I
think what works for you is what you should do
when you're doing something else with vegetables. We talked about,
you know, doing those zucchinis, doing those beautiful squashes that
you're you're a big fan of, Pete. What about cucumbers.
I've seen the kind of this thing going on. Jeff,

(01:20:42):
you might speak to this more than Pete and I can.
And pet don't want to hear your opinion too. I
keep seeing these new recipes popping up, particularly this year,
with cooking cucumbers and grilling them and doing things with them. Jeff,
you're you're you're kind of on the cutting edge when
it comes to these sort of things, believe.

Speaker 5 (01:20:56):
It or not.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
And like cooking cucumbers. Talk about it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:59):
I love a cucumber, either in the salad or I'll
char cucumber and then added to a cold cucumber soup.
I just like the flavor of it. It. It almost
makes a cucumber take on a like a smoky pickle flavor. Interesting,
you know, once you add a little vinegar and a
little salt, it's really it's a really an interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
You ever heard of this?

Speaker 6 (01:21:18):
Your charing those? I haven't your charren those the same
way you turn and I playing for babacan.

Speaker 5 (01:21:23):
It's kind of like a.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
Kind of like a squash bikini. Yeah, just a little
grill marks on the on the outside of it, right, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:21:31):
Yeah, you just added a little char for a little
bit of flavor and like kind of cooking it like
the way you would do is a kini or a
yellow squash?

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
Yeah? Interesting, right, I like that.

Speaker 5 (01:21:40):
So when it cooks, it gets really wet fast, you know,
like the way like a cucumber looks when it's pickled.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
You know, I mean it's gonna have to be very hot,
that's my thoughts. To be very hot with so much
water in the cucumber, Like it's gonna steam.

Speaker 5 (01:21:52):
Yeah, the way it does. But and you do get
you know, you have to like leave it on there
for a second and it gets you know, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
I kind of want to try, rightee, don't you?

Speaker 6 (01:22:01):
I do, I do want to try it. I I
am a huge fan of the the grilled romaine. Yeah,
a whole head of romain and then you know, slice
that up on the plate. Oh there's something about a
grilled salad that is uh, that's delicious.

Speaker 5 (01:22:19):
And and also uh and dives I love I love
them all, all grilled lettuces.

Speaker 1 (01:22:24):
And listen, I think in a beautiful grilled vegetable plate
for grilling vegetables, you're going squash or going zucchini. You're
grilling a little egg plant and onions. You want to
really beef it up a little bit for inexpensive way
to beef it up. A little grilled cabbage is amazing.
And grilled cabbage is one of my favorite things to do.
You cut in quarter, cut the head in quarters, and
just grill it up and put it in. The mix
comes out phenomenally, Jeffrey all the time. I love it.

Speaker 5 (01:22:46):
I love it. I like to like pick a piece
of cabbage and rub nuja you know what that is. Oh,
go ahead's explain that spicy salami. Uh spread you know
it's like, oh right, right right, So I take that
and I'll rub it in really creases, like you know,
put a glove on, take it, rub it all into
the creases of the cabbage.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
And now we're getting there. Now we're getting in the
jappy recipes.

Speaker 5 (01:23:12):
And then uh, you know, sometimes I'll grill it and
then I have to throw in the oven for a
little bit to get soft because you don't have to
be you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Know, too crunchy. And it looks great on a plate too.

Speaker 5 (01:23:23):
Oh it looks beautiful. And then you can put a
little sauce with it or something and it's.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
Oh yeah, delicious. Oh yeah, I mean that sounds phenomenal.
Little chimmy cherry, a little uri.

Speaker 5 (01:23:32):
I've done a little fresh tomato sauce with it, and
cabbage and tomatoes really delicious together.

Speaker 6 (01:23:37):
Chimmy cherry on anything, and chimmy churry is is stuff
you can pull all right out of your backyard garden
right regular was great, you know. That's that's one thing
we always say to people, like, if you're starting yourself
and you've got planter boxes, you get the herbs right,
because that's something you're going to go to all the
time and use all the time. Other herbs, So plant
the ragunoes plant, the parsley plant, the cilantro plant, the basil,

(01:24:03):
you know, and and all and all those things are
you know, grab grab the six pack from your garden center,
you know, pop those into patio pots, have them close
to the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Right, high success rate on those two, right, high success rate.

Speaker 6 (01:24:16):
Yeah, especially if they're already started and they're up, you know,
like you know you Let's say you have a recipe
and you want some fresh basil. Maybe instead of buying
that cut basil in the plastic container at the supermarket
on your way home, stop at the garden center and
buy a six pack of basil plants, pinch the leaves
you need, put the rest in the ground, and now
you've got continued basil for the rest of the summer.

Speaker 1 (01:24:38):
That's pretty cool. That's a great idea and very easy too.

Speaker 5 (01:24:40):
I love that I do that from the grocery store
all the time. Whenever I need basil. Instead of getting
like a bunch, I always buy that fresh basil plant
and the and then I try to keep it in
the window and nurse it and see how much.

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
I can get.

Speaker 5 (01:24:53):
How does that work out, Jeffys, Well, you know, every
once in a while, you get a couple of extra leaves.
You know, you kind of like keep you go the system.

Speaker 1 (01:25:03):
You know. We were talking earlier in the show about
ramps and how they're kind of a special thing, and
then you know, this time of year, it's all you
can get. A ramp. Jimmy cherry is phenomenal. Yeah, simple, easy,
I do. Roasted garlic my mine, roasted garlic and ramp
Jimmy cherry. Oh my gosh, one of the one of
the just beautiful things you can have in the world.
On a grilled steak, grop it grilled anything, you know.

(01:25:25):
I think that's the fun part about this. I think
I hope people learned a little bit from this. It's
not that hard to grow your own vegetables. It's not
that hard. And I'm not saying that to Pezza to
put you out of business, because I know you want
people to come and call you to do it. But
you guys are a different level when it comes to
doing this sort of thing. We got about three minutes
left here, Pete, give us an example of the most
elaborate garden you've ever made. You have to say anybody's name,

(01:25:45):
but just some of the features of it. In you know,
sixty seconds.

Speaker 6 (01:25:49):
So greenhouses, you know some some really big beautiful greenhouses
have gone into gardens. Jeffy, you're talking before about uh,
you know, micro greens.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
We built.

Speaker 6 (01:26:00):
We built a vegetable garden, and our gardener at that
project was every three days preparing a new flat of
microgreens and it would slide down the bench in the
greenhouse and at the right time with scissors. We were
preparing clamshells full microgreens. Uh in there putting in their

(01:26:21):
cooler for their chef. We yeah, we have a we
have a design on paper now that has a pizza oven.
We we It's actually something I've wanted for a long time.
It's a it's a defunct tennis court or an unused
tennis court getting converted to a vegetable garden. And in

(01:26:44):
one end of the vegetable garden is going to be
a full built masonry pizza oven surrounded by a beautiful pergola.
So it's outdoor in the garden of dining with lights
and you know, water features. The sky is the limit. Really,
it's it's fun. It makes it, uh makes every every

(01:27:05):
new garden different, and you know, tests our creative creative
minds to come up with something different and unique for
each each each garden. We great for our customers, that's
what makes it fun.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
Make sure you check out Aventine Gardens dot com and
our good friend Pete Marianno. He's the co owner of
that company right there, and of course Aventine Underscore Gardens
on Instagram. Pete, we appreciate you man, thanks for joining
us tonight. We appreciate you brother my pleasure.

Speaker 6 (01:27:29):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
You are the man for Chef Jeffie. I'm chef Plump.
Thanks for checking out Plumb of Foods right A, W
I c C. Have a great Saturday, Go plants some vegetables.
We'll see you guys next week

Speaker 5 (01:27:44):
And the rest