Running a French Laundry-inspired garden like a conversion program

What did I plant this year, and why?

Nine beds. Six committed to a variety I have grown at least three seasons and know performs. Three committed to varieties I have never grown, chosen because a chef I trust described their flavor in specific terms I could not reverse-engineer from memory. This is not a metaphor for exploit versus explore. It is exploit versus explore, and I am unembarrassed about it.

What the scoreboard looks like

A single-page note in the barn with three columns: bed, planted, notes. I write the notes in the moment, standing over the bed with pruners, because six weeks later I will not remember why the third row of the Cherokee Purple tomatoes bolted and the second did not. The best gardeners I know all keep some version of this. The worst all say they will remember.

What I killed this season

The bell peppers. Three years, three seasons of mediocre yield, and every time I convinced myself the next season would be different. It never was. Killing them freed a bed for a shishito variety a chef mentioned by name at a dinner in the spring. The shishitos have out-yielded three years of bell peppers combined.

The lesson is the lesson of every experimentation program: the hardest thing to do is stop investing in something that almost works. Almost-working things soak up capacity that would otherwise go to the next real thing.

Why write about this here?

Because "Off Hours" is a section of this site, and a working section of a personal site should be a working section, not a stage set. I run experiments on my garden the way I run them on my work. The garden is happier for it. So is the writing.