While evident care is given to the exterior look’n’feel of the many Baileys' Restaurants dotting St. Louis City streets, the company’s headquarters in the Gate District is a bit more modest in style, a plain, two-story, converted warehouse flanked by a funeral home and a school. Aside from a small logo on the front door, you’d be forgiven for missing the space completely on a quick drive-by. But a slower, more-careful look shows that splashes of color exist all around the building, particularly the color green.
With three, separate plots now in operation, the company’s full-time gardener, Will Erker (below), has turned some grassy lots into hyper-productive garden space for Dave and Kara Bailey, with the primary growing area found behind the company’s office. There, long rows of peppers, eggplants and tomatoes currently occupy the lion’s share of space, though plenty of other vegetables, herbs and flowers filter in. In the third season of operation, this farm space is the one coming quickest to fruition; while a food pantry was the last tenant to occupy the space before Bailey’s, their own garden efforts had fallen into disrepair, leaving nothing more than “rotted-out raised beds,” so this was a from-scratch effort.
“Gardening is always challenging,” Erker says. “I am constantly learning. And the weather is different every year; this was a very warm spring. I would say the most-exciting elements of this year is that I feel like the garden is growing into itself. I’m finding new, small spaces where I can grow something, or a fence line that I didn’t use for growing last year Also, because I’ve brought in so much mulch, to keep the weeds down and to retain moisture, I’ve also been building and enriching these beds year-by-year. That’s something I’m excited about.”
Asked to tick off a list of what’s currently in the ground, he points to “a couple hundred tomato plants that we’ve got going back here,” then continues..
“We intercrop, with beets and carrots,” Erker starts. “Lots of basil. That was our biggest crop last year and we grew up to 600 pounds. We also have a lot of cucumbers growing along our fences, taking advantage of those as an already-existing resource for vertical gardening. I’ve just planted a whole bunch of cantaloupe, after tearing out the spring lettuce. We have a wide selection of herbs, including mint, chives, parsley and there’s the basil, obviously. And there are some things I’m experimenting with, like chamomile, horseradish.
“The other vegetables and fruits would include some watermelons, peppers and eggplants,” he adds. “We already did a lot of snap peas in the spring. We’ve got some fruit trees: cherry, peach and pear trees and some mulberries I’m trying to get started.”
Another eye-catching aspect of the Compton-facing plot is a series of beehives, coordinated with a friend of the business who has installed five hives; based on a careful walk-by, these are vibrant and active colonies. While the honey production is still in the experimentation phase, Kara Bailey says that one aspect of the operation is in full… well... full flower. At most of the Baileys' Restaurants, fresh-cut flowers dot the tables and “last year, we had to supplement those with bought flowers. After this year, we hope to not have to, we’ll grow it all here.”
(Off-handedly asked whether it’s more satisfying to produce a fine haul of vegetables or a great harvest of flowers, Erker smiles and says “both are, but everyone loves flowers.”)
Asked if the space has basically maxed-out, it’s suggested by Bailey that the space is getting tight in the immediate plots. As importantly, Erker’s time is pretty-much spoken for with the current configuration.
“This is probably all that one person can do,” she says. “And this is all Will, which is super-impressive, even with the help of volunteers, who come in randomly. If we were to grow this part of the operation, we’d need to grow in employees for it, as well.”
She says that there’s still some education happening, with customers learning about the in-house growing operation. Though the garden’s been on the Sustainable Backyard Tour for the past three years, she says that managers and servers are reminded about the farm whenever possible, in the hopes that they remind customers.
Dave and Kara Bailey
“I don’t know that many people do know about it,” she says. “This year, we’ve tried to make more of a push, to inform the staff and make sure they’re aware of what we’re doing here. We invite the managers here to see it, that type of thing. We also use social media, trying to highlight the awesome things coming out of here, then showcase what the chefs do with it. There’s fun in (capturing) the before/after shots.”
As Bailey and her husband, the business’ namesake, Dave Bailey, leave the garden and Erker’s resumes the task of stringing some tomato lines, he pauses for a moment and says, with an almost conspiratorial tone, that he has “one more anecdote.
“I think that these gardens have been an awesome project for myself, and for the restaurants, but I really admire the effort that Dave and Kara, and the whole company, have already put into sourcing so much (regionally),” he says. “Like buying Missouri-produced vegetables and meat products that were humanely-raised. I think that’s a huge thing. What I’m doing here is just the cherry on top of what they’ve already done.”
It’s a cherry that he hasn’t yet grown on-site, but give him time. It’s only year three and Erker’s plan is to be around this patch of soil for a bit.
