Author Archives: Mark Thompson

red acre cabbage (top) and sprouting daikon radish microgreensIn my first few weeks in coronavirus lockdown in Philadelphia, I’ve discovered a crop that will become a fixture in my home cooking from now on: sprouting daikon radish microgreens. I’m now putting them in all kinds of things. Check out my three favorite creations so far: sprouting daikon chimichurri, sprouting daikon pesto, and sprouting daikon-pumpkin seed mole sauce.
I started growing sprouting daikon and several other microgreen varieties—including red acre cabbage, ruby red chard, garnet red amaranth, and a kale mix–in February in the idyllic confines of the Fairmount Park Horticultural Center greenhouse, where I landed a spot this year after a couple of years on a waiting list.

All of the microgreens flourished in the greenhouse—but we sadly had to evacuate in mid-March due to the pandemic. So I brought them all home, where they–thanks to the jumpstart they got in the greenhouse–continued to thrive on my dining room tabletop, and provide a continuous harvest for the next several weeks.

I brought home a small pot each of red acre cabbage and ruby red chard, densely planted for microgreen use. Even though they were ready for harvest when I brought them home in mid-March, they held up well in the pots for weeks without getting rangy, so I was able to harvest a few snips at a time to add to salads for weeks. I also brought a flat of garnet red amaranth microgreens back from the greenhouse, which made for visually striking additions to salads, soups, spring rolls, even deviled eggs (see below). They are so wispy that they don’t add much in the way of substance, in my estimation, but they are fun to have around for their looks.

The quick-growing daikon—which I got by mail order from Mountain Valley Seed Company—have been the real stand-outs in this new indoor environment. They are harvestable less than two weeks from planting, and hold for another week or two before they sprout a new set of leaves and start to get stringy. I’ve even grown a crop entirely inside my living quarters, on a tabletop that gets not much more than three hour of direct sunlight, in two weeks’ time.

But it’s not their growing properties that have been a revelation during my self-quarantine. It is their culinary versatility. They are great in salads—no surprise—and also sandwiches and wraps, and their Asian counterparts, spring rolls and sushi. You can toss a bunch in ramen, pho and other soups, as well as in stir fries. They also brighten up pesto, and are excellent in chimichurri, adding a piquant peppery element to the flavor profile. Best of all in my experiments so far, sprouting daikon radishes are superb in a green pumpkin seed mole.

SPROUTING DAIKON RECIPES: sprouting daikon chimichurri, pesto, and green mole sauce. 

A peach, an Asian pear, nectarines, plums, pluots and a tangerine from the Santa Barbara Farmers Market, photographed on Sand Dollar Beach in Big Sur

July 16, 2016–On a quick return trip to Los Angeles, where I lived for 25 years before moving east, I managed to fit in a visit to two of my favorite places on one road trip: the Santa Barbara Farmers Market and Big Sur. My daughters, girlfriend and I left Los Angeles at 9 a.m., were parked and strolling through the market a couple of hours later, and made it to our Airbnb rental, a rustic cabin at Charan Springs Farm in the foothills outside of Cambria, just south of Big Sur, by mid-afternoon, with enough fruit and vegetables to last us for the weekend and beyond.

To get a sense of the ever-changing kaleidoscope array of produce on sale at this market, check out these reports from my visits to the Santa Barbara market in previous years in February, March and June.

Here’s a slide show of scenes from the market on this day:

And here are some of my purchases.

pluot varieties including Dapple Dandy, Dapple Fire, Flavor Grande and July Rose; plum varieties including Mariposa and Mirabelle; Arctic Queen nectarine; and (upper right) Daisy tangerine
$2.50-3.50/lb.

Asian pear, Mariposa and Mirabelle plums
$2.50-3/lb.

Australian finger caviar limes
$20/lb.

heirloom tomatoes (including persimmon, lemon boy and Cherokee purple)
$3.50-4/lb.

Italian frying peppers (left) and Persian cucumbers
peppers $3.50/lb.
cucumbers $3/lb.

squash and eggplant varieties
squash $2/lb.
eggplant $3/lb.

broccolini
$3/lb.

fresh ginger (top) and torpedo onions
ginger $9/lb.
onions $2/bunch

– Mark Thompson

July 16, 2014–On the sidewalk in the decidedly urban and deeply historic neighborhood of Germantown a few blocks from where I live, there’s a farmstand every Friday afternoon from May through October where you can buy produce grown on the grounds of a national historic landmark, Wyck Farm. There’s been a farm here for more than 300 years. The two-and-a-half-acre fragment still left is just down Germantown Avenue from Cliveden, a colonial mansion that was at the center of the Revolutionary War’s Battle of Germantown,  The oldest section of the farmhouse that still stands on Wyck Farm, sharing a funky stretch of the avenue with Charley Grey’s Rib Crib, Mecca Pizza and the Brand New Life Christian Center, was built in 1736.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Wyck Farm, which was owned for nine generations by a prominent Quaker family, occupied 50 acres in what was then a rural hamlet several hours by horse and buggy from Philadelphia. The remaining parcel is a bucolic oasis surrounded by the city. It is run by an association that offers summer camps and other educational offerings for kids, programs about local history and the weekly farmers market, featuring gourmet produce sold at prices that are fitting for a low-income neighborhood.

On my visits in recent weeks, I purchased carrots, beets, radishes, kale and other staples, as well as specialty items such as garlic scapes, black raspberries and gooseberries. Visitors on market afternoons are welcome to take a self-guided tour of the property. If you have questions about the day’s offerings, the farm manager, Katie Brownell, is happy to chat. If you, like me, are a gardener yourself, you can pick up some pointers from her about which vegetable varieties are doing best, how she is coping with pests and what she expects to have for sale in the weeks ahead.

Katie was introduced to farming in this region when she worked at farmers markets affiliated with the Food Trust, an organization that helps oversee more than two dozen farmers markets in the city including the Wyck Farmers Market. In that job, she got to know some of the growers, which led to jobs on nearby farms in the region that sell at Philadelphia farmers markets. She later completed a graduate program in organic farming in Michigan.

This is her second year managing the Wyck Home Farm. It is an ongoing learning experience, she says. Some of what she learned in Michigan hasn’t worked here. For example, as she noted in the weekly report that she emails to customers, some lettuce varieties that lasted through the summer in the somewhat cooler climate of Michigan bolted before the end of May in Philadelphia. On the other hand, a tomato variety that was one of her favorites in Michigan, the dramatically striped Copia, thrived in Germantown last year and she expects it to be a star performer again this year.

Katie is also looking forward to a mid-summer harvest of a crop that you don’t ordinarily see around here at the hottest time of year: broccoli. The Piracicaba variety, from Brazil, “actually enjoys hot weather,” she wrote in one of her weekly reports. And if you’re looking for something new to eat, keep an eye out for Malabar climbing spinach, a nutritious green that loves 90-degree heat. On my recent tours of the farm, I’ve noticed that it has been about a foot higher on the trellis each week.