September 2019 - 14

FARM MARKET & AGRITOURISM
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
High-end wine estates, restaurants
Taylor grows for chefs, wine estate guests
Vegetable Growers News: Tell me a
little bit about where you grow.
Tucker Taylor: Our culinary garden
and boutique farm-themed hotels are
becoming popular around the country.
While their growing operations
themselves don't resemble traditional
commercial agriculture, they do
generate substantial income from
farm visitors who stay or dine
there. And those agritainment or
agritourism dollars would be welcome
at many growers' farm markets.
To see if traditional farm marketers
can learn from the more ritzy end of
agriculture, Vegetable Growers News
recently interviewed Tucker Taylor, the
grower behind Kendall-Jackson Wine
Estate & Gardens, a four-acre operation
in California's Sonoma County that
hosts farm-to-table dinners and other
culinary-themed events.
Taylor, who has a degree
Tucker Taylor is the grower behind Kendall-Jackson Wine Estate & Gardens.
Photos: Kendall-Jackson
from the University of Florida
in environmental horticulture,
previously designed and operated
certified organic farms in Oregon
and Georgia. He came to California
to redesign the two-acre garden near
The French Laundry restaurant in
Napa Valley. In 2013, he re-designed
the 4-acre culinary gardens at Jackson
Family Wines, which grow produce
for an in-house culinary team as
well as several talented chefs in and
around San Francisco.
is approximately four acres of highly
diversified specialty produce that is
grown year-round in fertile sandy
loam soil that has a very high content
of organic matter.
VGN: What are some weed/pest
control issues for your farm and how
do you resolve them?
TT: We began planting diversified
perennial borders around our
culinary garden six years ago. It is
always amazing to watch gardens
come into balance with the attraction
of beneficial insects and pollinators.
We also use row covers to prevent
damage from insects like flea beetles
and cucumber beetles. On a rare
occasion we still have some aphids
and will spray a soap solution to
control their population. We have owl
houses and perches for birds of prey
to help control rodents, but we also
set traps for gophers and voles. For
weed control, we use a flame weeder
and various hand tools.
VGN: Do you attend some of these
events hosted at the gardens? What is
your role at the events?
TT: When I redesigned the
culinary gardens, it was with our
monthly Farm to Table Dinner
Series in mind. I attend most of
these dinners as well as fundraising
dinners in the garden for nonprofits.
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September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2019
