February 2002
Dear ReaderDoes your garden spill onto your table? At Darling Mills restaurant in Glebe, Sydney, it does. There, the enterprising Adey family serve salads picked daily from their garden at Berrilee in Sydney's leafy northern suburbs.
I visited them recently on a hot Sunday afternoon, just after weeks of sub-tropical deluge, and Steven Adey, the "farmer" of the family, showed me around. Steven studied agriculture at Sydney University and spent some time in California during the mid 1980s working in Alice Waters's garden (Chez Panisse, Berkeley). For the past 15 years, he has grown baby salad leaves and herbs for various restaurants in Sydney on the family property at Castle Hill. But gradually the suburbs had moved in and they needed something larger. Hence the move to Berrilee, an area which was once the fruit bowl of the city. "There aren't as many snails here!" he said, with a grin. "Although wood ducks and rabbits are a problem," he quickly added.
There are three different systems on the farm: organic, hydroponic and greenhouse. We went first to look at the hydroponic system. Much of the rocket had begun to turn yellow due to the rain, but the watercress was thriving. According to Steven, watercress has become very popular and he is intending to expand the quantity grown.
But it was in the greenhouse that I discovered something really new - the Micro Salad. "I had been thinking about doing a salad mix which was different from the mesclun (mixed baby leaves) I'd done before," he explained. "And then I came across these micro salads in the Johnny Seeds catalogue from the U.S. They are very popular there in upmarket restaurants now. I use tiny leaves like rocket and mizuna and a variety of sprouts like daikon, amaranth, red cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli and a lot of mustard cresses. The leaves are picked when they're between about 5cm - 7cm in length and mixed with the sprouts."
Delicate to the eye, it's a mix which packs a punch, due to the large number of mustard cress and daikon sprouts through it. You're bound to start noticing it on menus of good restaurants across town. As with the mesclun, the micro salad is thoroughly washed in the salad washing area before being packaged into plastic bags.
In the organic garden, adjacent to the Adey's large Gothic-style house, the rain had inflicted some damage but there were enough plants left to inspire: multi-coloured nasturtiums (remember when flower petals were fashionable to use in salad mixes?), bronze fennel (so sweet!), rosella bushes, radicchio, lemongrass, bushes of deep purple perilla (used in sushi), and myriad herbs like French tarragon, thyme, mitsuba (Japanese parsley), salad burnett and coriander.
This two acre plot drains well due to its sandy soil and position on the top of a ridge, but these were only a small percentage of the herbs and vegetables Steven regularly grows there. Composting is essential to the success of Steven's garden and he is very methodical in the way he goes about it. There are five regular employees, including his assistant Matthew Thummler who has been with him for twelve years. "He attends to all the small details," comments Steven.
If you'd like to buy the Darling Mills' salad mixes, you'll find them at the Pyrmont Produce Markets, near the Casino (first Saturday of each month) and the North Sydney Produce Markets, near Stanton Library (third Saturday of the month). A large bag costs $5, small $4.
Steven's sisters, Cynthia and Susan (who work at the restaurant) also sell fabulous marinated olives, perfumed orange blossom and rose petal syrups, and a variety of dips like spiced chickpea, beetroot and yoghurt, tzatziki and baba ghanouj.
Darling Mills Restaurant,
134 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
Ph: (02) 9660 5666
