Stalks & Vines
heirloom series: part II
Our beanstalks in the garden at Holly Hill Inn are reaching new heights! We planted half-runners and both Bertie Best and Greasy Grit greasy beans and can’t wait to start picking them. All of these are string beans — varieties that fell out of favor as food production became industrialized. Any deficiencies in convenience, though, are more than made up in flavor and the fact that these beans can be enjoyed either fresh or dried. These heirlooms are all runner (or pole) beans meaning they grow up instead of out and require trellis support.
The Zeke Dishman tomato (pictured above) is still growing but could easily exceed two pounds or more when ripe. Ian Feeback, our DirtWorks gardener at Holly Hill Inn, says he once picked a Zeke Dishman that hit almost three pounds on the scale! Zeke Dishman was a real person who lived in Windy, Ky., part of Wayne County. Each year he selected the best tomatoes from his patch to save the seeds from, and after about 20 years was finally satisfied with the end result, which anyone can now plant and grow.
Ian shows off a Chinese string eggplant, which Holly Hill Chef de Cuisine Hannah Arvin likes to use in a Summer Vegetable Tian. She layers eggplant with squash, zucchini and new potatoes. The vegetables are covered with a rich Mornay sauce, baked until browned and bubbly, then served with simple garden lettuces dressed in a roast carrot vinaigrette.
Calendula, nasturtium and anise hyssop bloom in the kitchen herb garden, below right. Ian dreams of drying the calendula blooms for tea and turning anise hyssop into a syrup for teacakes.
Holly Hill & Company farmer David Wagoner laid the garden path with bricks salvaged from a chimney at Holly Hill Inn, blown down in a summer storm, and built the shed out of wind-thrown wood on his Three Springs Farm.
We’re catching Ian’s infectious enthusiasm for heirloom vegetables and we love the feeling! Here he is, outside Chris and Ouita Michel’s 1800-era house, explaining how half-runner beans got their name because of their habit of developing a compact, bush-shaped base before sending runners sky-ward, hence a half-runner.
As we enter the full-on blast of summer, now is peak time to plan a front porch dinner at Holly Hill Inn and see how our chefs have transformed garden heirlooms into magic on the plate.
Related Content
Seed Saving
an heirloom series: part I
Our garden game is growing! Holly Hill Inn line cook and DirtWorks manager Ian Feeback learned from the best – Bill Best, that is! – and has started several varieties of heirloom seeds for planting in our garden soon. Join along as we learn what heirloom plants mean for the food world and why we should care about them.
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