Gardening Goes "Fabulous"

In June 2010, Planet Green debuted “The Fabulous Beekman Boys”—a reality show starring Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell, a New York City couple who bought a farm. As owners of the Beekman in Sharon Springs, New York, the pair set out to launch a business and become gentlemen farmers.

Five years after buying the Beekman, Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell are growing 80% of their own food. For their latest project, their company, Beekman 1802, has teamed up with Williams-Sonoma to grow the World’s Largest Community Garden. Their goal is for 10,000 gardeners to grow the same ten heirlooms and share in each others’ experiences along the way.

“We always like to highlight the importance of community, sharing information, and supporting each other,” Ridge told Patch.

The online community is at the heart of everything they do—the two are constantly replying to Facebook posts, posting articles and recipes on their blog, and replying to questions on their website forums. Even their llama, Polka Spot, has a loyal following on Facebook and Twitter.

“We set out to be an online farm,” Ridge said. “Small farms are closing left and right, we knew we had to do something different.”

The World’s Largest Community Garden recruited experts in each growing zone to help answer questions and provide tips for new gardeners.  The Official Beekman Heirloom Gardeners were chosen last week from over 1,100 submissions.

“We were looking for people who are internet savvy and have the time to answer questions. Other than that, we’re looking for people with several years of gardening experience, who have had experience handling successes and failures,” Ridge said.

A newsletter and regular checklists will help walk new gardeners through every step of the process, while the website forums will provide a constant source of support. Ridge shared how they arrived at the ten heirlooms included in this year's seed collection.

“We grow 110 different varieties of heirlooms in our own gardens, so we started there and narrowed it down to 10 that we thought everyone would have some success growing. We wanted things that would be fairly easy—we don’t want people to get turned off to gardening.”

The ten that made the cut are: Purple Top White Globe Turnip, Long Green Improved Cucumber, Black Cherry Tomato, Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach, Bullnose or Bell Sweet Pepper, Nantes Scarlet Half Long Carrot, French Breakfast Radish, Green Hubbard Winter Squash, Bountiful Bush Bean, and Small Sugar Pumpkin.

Apartment dwellers can rest assured that with the exception of squash and pumpkins, all of the heirloom vegetables could also be grown in containers.

“We got our start growing tomatoes [in New York City], that was our first foray into heirlooms,” Ridge said. “The biggest lesson we’ve learned is that gardening is not necessarily a science…you really just need to put a seed in some dirt, give it some sun and water and something will grow. We believe that anybody can garden.”

Despite a popular reality show, numerous award nominations, a loyal fan base dubbed "Beek Geeks," and a successful business, Ridge remains remarkably down-to-earth.

“We don’t think of ourselves as celebrities, we’re so far removed from places where celebrities gather. We’re in Sharon Springs, we're not followed around by paparazzi,” Ridge said.

Martha Stewart fans may remember Ridge from the years he spent as Vice President of Healthy Living at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and a frequent guest on her show. While he hasn’t yet spoken with her about the Community Garden, it’s easy to see Martha getting behind this sort of project.

“She loves to inspire people—she makes a few appearances [on “The Fabulous Beekman Boys”] in season two,” Ridge said.

Kilmer-Purcell is the New York Times bestselling author of "I Am Not Myself These Days," "Candy Everybody Wants," and, most recently, "The Bucolic Plague," which chronicles their decision to buy a farm.

The Beekman heirloom vegetable garden seed collection is available now at Williams-Sonoma stores, or on Williams-Sonoma's website. The second season of "The Fabulous Beekman Boys" premieres on March 22.