FOODday News



Farmer's specialty greens helped tip over the iceberg



05/28/02



In the late 80's, Bittersweet Bill was an early pioneer
in promoting mesclun and exotic salad mixes


By AMY MARTINEZ STARKE

THE OREGONIAN



Ask your supermarket produce manager for Tokyo bekana or tatsoi, and you may get a puzzled look. Ask Bill Gibson at the Portland or Hollywood farmers markets and he'll gladly sell you some. If he's out, he'll offer to bring it next week or -- in a bit of east Tennessee twang -- point you to a farmer two stalls down.

Back in the late 1980s, when salads were iceberg and a slice of tomato, Gibson's Bittersweet Farm in Estacada was selling mesclun (baby salad greens) mixes to local retailers. Americans now enjoy it in colors from pale green to purple, and flavors from tart radicchio to mustardy mizuna. Gibson, 51, stays ahead of the curve through research and experimentation.

He was active in Oregon Tilth before organic certification was common, when information was scarce. He's been certified organic since 1988, and has helped test seeds for organic seed companies.  He grows greens on a small portion of his 6-acre minifarm. "You'd be surprised at what you can do . . . two tons of salad on two acres," he says.
Those two tons include 23 kinds of specialty greens -- all hand-harvested and hand-mixed -- which go to farmers markets, restaurants and stores in the Portland area.

Produce buyers call him Wild Bill, as he's a bit of a character. He calls himself Bittersweet Bill. The Tennessean left his home state 22 years ago, and after spending some time in California, he says, "I found God's country, and you're not going to get me out of here." Farming is a second career for the former newspaper and free-lance photographer, who in his spare time plays folk music on acoustic guitar. He'll occasionally play at the small farmers market, if asked.

A variety of succulent and small pak choy is added to salad mixes in May and June.

At Bittersweet Farm Bill Gibson tends a rainbow of colorful organic greens that
 delight the eye as well as the palate.

Gibson sells salad mixes year-round, but the components vary from week to week or month to month, depending on the season. January and February bring miner's lettuce, mache (corn salad; pronounced "mosh"), escarole, treviso, early baby radicchio and Russian red kale. Mid-March is the season for baby rainbow chard, early baby lettuces and early spinach. In April, and continuing through November, there's an explosion of taste and texture: seven to 11 kinds of baby lettuces, as well as specialty greens such as purple orach, which has a spinachy taste. In June, he harvests edible flowers -- calendula, nasturtium, pansies -- which continue through the killing frost. In July and August, the radicchio is sweet. From March through Thanksgiving he works seven days a week, waking up at 4:30 a.m. on market days. In November, his greenhouses take over and the hardier greens grow through the winter, such as the kales and arugula and rainbow chard.

In addition to the greens and some organic vegetables, Gibson produces wildflower honey. His bees also help with pollination and pest control on the farm. He also works with other growers selling their produce or helping new farmers get off the ground. He wants to do more seminars on organic agriculture.

Gibson constantly monitors the whims of consumers, and some greens in his salad mixes come and go -- dandelion greens because they're too intense for some tastes, and red mustard because it breaks down too fast. Over the years, he's added chicory, escarole, frisee and radicchio.

"We don't know if it's going to sell," he says. "We just hope that we find enough folks (customers) to keep the farm       rolling."



Hand-selected, hand-picked mixed organic greens and edible flowers
go into a salad mix that changes from month to month.

Farming is a tough business, and sometimes a sad one. Gibson and wife Louisa Rea have lost one farm -- "Elk killed it," he says, by eating the crops -- and recently, partly because of the demands of farm life, they have separated. They have no children.

At home, Gibson likes his salads with roasted sesame seeds, pepper and Deerfield's vinaigrette blackberry sage or Asian pear dressing (Deerfield's is a fellow Portland Farmers Market vendor).

bittersweet bill
He's well enough known at the farmers markets that regular customers get upset if he's not there.

"I just say prop me up out there and let me sell the stuff. That's the only way I get out of the farm."

He says he likes it when the market opens in the spring, and people tell him they're glad he's back -- "and when somebody comes up and says, 'You have the best stuff.' "

    

 "I've found God's country, and you're not going to get me out of here."


Bill Gibson's greens are available prepackaged at the Portland, Hollywood and Peoples farmers markets. You can also find them at Pastaworks, Porcini Produce (City Market and Irvington Market), Food Front, some Hot Lips Pizza restaurants, Williams on 12th and Three Friends coffee house.

Amy Martinez Starke can be reached at 221-8534 or

by e-mail at amystarke@news.oregonian.com