Fresh Take: As Spring Arrives, Here’s Some Inspiration For Your Garden

What an eclipse this week—here in New York City, where we had around 90% totality, the magnitude felt immense. The planetary phenomenon has unofficially kicked off spring, too, and all the natural glory has made me excited to get back into the garden.

After planting little sprouts of lettuce, spinach, arugula and herbs in hanging pots along my apartment terrace, I also started to germinate seeds for hotter temperatures. Thanks to chef Dan Barber’s seed and vegetable brand Row 7, I’ve got Midnight Roma Tomatoes, Habanada Peppers and Beauregarde Snow Peas to look forward to. I caught up with Barber at a recent luncheon he hosted to celebrate Row 7’s bounty at the thoughtful upstate New York resort Wildflower Farms, and he assured me that flavor and nutrient density are the foundation of his produce.

What’s also left me feeling energized is the heap of this season’s cookbook and food nonfiction releases that I’ve been working my way through. Here’s one standout I can’t stop talking about: Into The Weeds: How To Garden Like A Forager. Professional forager Tama Matsuoka Wong’s handbook explaining how she has revitalized 20 acres in New Jersey over the years is possibly the best work on gardening I’ve ever read. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy and see where its inspiration takes you.

— Chloe Sorvino, Staff Writer

Order my book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, out now from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books.

This is Forbes’ Fresh Take newsletter, which every Friday brings you the latest on the big ideas changing the future of food. Want to get it in your inbox every week? Sign up here.

What’s Fresh

Eva Longoria Joins Siete Foods To Build A Billion Dollar Brand

In addition to investing in Siete Foods, the actress and philanthropist joins the company as a strategic advisor. Siete Foods is best known for their gluten-free tortillas, chips, and cookies rooted in heritage-inspired Mexican-American flavors.

30 Under 30 Europe Art & Culture 2024: Meet The Artists And Creatives Designing The Future

Here are the young innovators creating the future fashion, art and food in Europe.

CAVU Backed Gymkhana Fine Foods Raises $3 Million To Bring High-End Indian Recipes To Grocery Stores

Gymkhana has emerged to become a fine dining landmark after opening its first restaurant in London 10 years ago, and now its high-end Indian recipes are coming to retail.

Field Notes

A decadent baked potato from Chef Dan Barber’s Row 7, raised by Norwich Meadow Farms and served inside a barn set on the sprawling grounds of Wildflower Farms in Gardiner, New York.

Thanks for reading the 109th edition of Forbes Fresh Take! Let me know what you think. Subscribe to Forbes Fresh Take here.

Chloe Sorvino leads coverage of food and agriculture as a staff writer on the enterprise team at Forbes. Her book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat, published on December 6, 2022, with Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her nearly nine years of reporting at Forbes has brought her to In-N-Out Burger’s secret test kitchen, drought-ridden farms in California’s Central Valley, burnt-out national forests logged by a timber billionaire, a century-old slaughterhouse in Omaha and even a chocolate croissant factory designed like a medieval castle in northern France.