Top Organic Gardening Tips from Top Chef's Mark Simmons

You might remember Mark Simmons as the sweet, oddball Kiwi from Top Chef Season 4. Then again, you might not. Either way, I ate some of his food recently and it was pretty damn good, and I'm a tough critic. I especially enjoyed his homemade pickles, which, if you're in the Park Slope, Brooklyn, area you'll be able to sample at Get Fresh where he is chef (with chef/owner Juventino Avila). You might also try sitting out back on the patio among the mint, black edamame, and of course, that pandemic cilantro.

This small garden is an inaugural experiment meant to supply the restaurant with some of its food throughout the spring and summer, amount to be determined. While chefs like Dan Barber at Blue Hill have taken the restaurant garden (read huge pastoral farm), to a model and ambitious level, it certainly isn't every chef, every urban restaurant that has the space, climate or financing to grow nearly all its food. But, as with all things green, we can and should, you know, do what we can. And Mark Simmons is doing what he can in his "backyard" plot. The man has a green thumb and dedication to the project and the whole restaurant's thing is that holy green trinity of food: local, sustainable, organic.

If you're a restaurant chef/owner or a home cook/gardener, you might take some pointers from Mark who is gardening on a level sustainable for his restaurant and I suspect, many of you. While getting your food at the market is great, getting it from your yard is better. That's not news, but it's true.

Mark Simmons's Top Organic Gardening Tips (For a Garden You'll Want to Eat!)

If it's Your First Time Gardening:

- Buy plants that are already on their way (buy tomato plants, not tomato seeds)

- Plant in the hottest part of the day

- Purchase these high-yield plants that are tolerant and not prone to disease: - Tomato - Peppers - Eggplant - Peas - Bush beans - Spinach - Thyme - Rosemary - Basil

Get More Bang for Your Buck

Choose: Kale, swiss shard, spinach. Reason: They produce all season.

Choose: Tomato and peppers. Reason: You can make sauces, can the sauces, and have them all year round.

- Obviously grow plants that your foresee utilizing

- For every person you intend on feeding, plant 1.5 tomato plants (4 people - 6 plants)

- Pinch herbs from the top, pinch off any flowering herbs as they turn the herbs bitter.

- I find that coffee grinds and tea leaves straight on the garden bed deter parasites and the plants love them. Also, I put crumbled cigar butts straight on the garden because I love smoking cigars.