
DATE: Sunday, November 9, 1997              TAG: 9711090059

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WANCHESE                          LENGTH:  155 lines

A GREEN THUMB RESTAURANTS SAY FARMER'S PRODUCE IS THEIR NATURAL CHOICE.

While camping in the Caribbean, Ken Whidbee ate some of the most perfect pumpkins he'd ever come across.

He saved a half-dozen seeds from the tropical fruit, stuffed them in a match box in the bottom of his backpack and brought them back to the States. He planted the seeds in a small plot of land on the wind-swept Outer Banks. More than 2,000 pounds of pumpkins sprouted from that patch.

Seven years later, the organic produce farm that started with those seeds has grown into a $30,000-a-year business.

``I didn't know what to do with all those pumpkins when they came up. Good as they were, I couldn't eat 'em all,'' Whidbee said last week while stacking basketball-sized Calabaza pumpkins into an equally orange plastic basket. ``So I called some chefs at restaurants around here and asked if they wanted any. They didn't know what to do with them either. I told 'em about the pumpkin soup I'd enjoyed in St. Thomas - and they just ate that up.''

On the 2-acre farm Whidbee tends in Wanchese, purple potatoes grow under thigh-high rows of wide-leafed lemon grass. Eggplants hang from thick, forest-green stalks. And bulls-blood beets, the same color as their name, spring from the black soil beside long lines of lettuce.

Fifteen varieties of salad greens grow at Wanchese Produce. Some, like the light, leafy ``green wave'' mustard, are as hot as jalapeno peppers. Others have tastes ranging from bitter to mild.

And all are as flavorful as the herbs that Whidbee says are his best-sellers.

``When I dropped those pumpkins off at the restaurants, the chefs all asked me if I had any basil. I didn't back then. But I knew I could grow it - and get rid of it,'' Whidbee said. ``So I got it going in my garden the next week. Now, I sell 100 pounds of basil a week all summer at 25 restaurants on the Outer Banks and around Norfolk. I get $10 a pound for it. It's really my cash crop.''

Chives, rosemary and dill also sell well, he said. Yellow and green striped tomatoes, pineapple sage and fragrant cilantro are perfect for salsas. And edible flowers ranging from scarlet nasturtiums to golden Mexican tarragon that tastes like licorice fetch from 10 cents a blossom to $10 for four handfuls. Chefs sprinkle the flowers atop soups and around dessert plates painted with sweet sauces. They're willing to pay for the quality Whidbee produces.

``Everything Ken grows is the best,'' said Chef Mark Harrison, who serves 325 or more dinners each summer night at the Sanderling Inn of Duck. ``I buy $800 or more produce from him each week during tourist season. I know it's been picked that morning - not shipped all over the country in the back of some truck. So it's not only fresh, it lasts a lot longer, too. And I don't have to worry about any chemicals on it.''

Whidbee grows everything organically. He loads 30 tons of tuna carcasses into the back of his pickup each year and mixes them with flounder heads. Watermen at nearby Wanchese fish houses give him the seafood scraps for free. They're glad to get rid of them. And owners of Creswell chicken houses encourage him to pick up their poultry poop.

The composted combination makes a putrid - but effective - natural fertilizer.

Insect and animal repellants at Wanchese Produce also are organic. By letting some of his leafy crops flower, Whidbee said, the blooms attract birds that devour harmful bugs. And 50-pound bags of blood meal he buys from slaughterhouses and spreads over his garden ward off raccoons, rabbits and other produce predators. Brown Beck's beer bottles tied to tree branches blow in the wind, scaring off crows. Even the lawnmowers are natural: two black goats and four fat sheep munch grass, saving Whidbee tractor time.

``I could do things a lot cheaper with herbicides. But then I wouldn't be able to sell the product as organic - and it probably wouldn't be as good,'' Whidbee said. ``Sometimes I can get twice as much money for organic produce as you would for the same stuff that's grown commercially with chemicals.''

Whidbee, a self-taught farmer who reads seed catalogs and asks agricultural experts a lot of questions, built houses from 1978 until 1985. Then he started his own Outer Banks landscaping business. The 39-year-old father of two still earns about half his income tending other people's lawns.

But from clearing his live-oak lined land with chainsaws to building a plywood pump house above the farm's 140-foot-deep well to laying 4,000 feet of PVC pipes along the acres as part of his homemade irrigation/ sprinkler system, Whidbee does almost all the work at Wanchese Produce himself. Between two and four people help plant seeds and pick crops during peak seasons. And everything is harvested by hand.

With a woolen ball cap shading his ruddy face, and thinning, sun-streaked hair falling just above his shoulders, Whidbee spends about 10 hours a day, four days a week, stooped over the tender stalks, pulling weeds and picking produce. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he stacks plastic bags filled with the fruits of his labor into his Isuzu's small back seat. Then he drives 90 minutes, along the Outer Banks and into Hampton Roads, taking each order into the kitchen so the chefs can inspect his products.

``I used to call 'em before I went in, taking orders for what they wanted. Now I just go and show 'em what I got - and they make specials up from that,'' Whidbee said. ``I still seem to sell the same amount.''

Almost all the entrees at Sanderling Inn feature something from Wanchese Produce, Harrison said. Donny King, the head chef at 1587 restaurant in Manteo, uses Whidbee's organically grown goodies in soups, salads and for special occasions. Other popular produce patrons include Penguin Isle in Nags Head, Flying Fish Cafe in Kill Devil Hills and Bistro 210 and La Galleria in Norfolk.

``Ken provides tremendous quality,'' King said from the waterfront eatery he runs at Roanoke Island's Tranquil House Inn. ``We use multiple-colored herbs and flowers he grows that are gorgeous - mainly for garnishes. I'd say 80 percent of our herbs come from his garden.

``Many of the varieties he grows we can't get anywhere else. His flavors are very bold. And especially for the quality, his prices are great.''

Several of the specials at 1587 are inspired by Whidbee's crops. Recently, King created pan roasted rockfish over bitter Wanchese greens with wild rice, raspberry balsamic glaze and mushrooms sprinkled with pine nuts. Seared ostrich atop tart cherry jus with orange and shaved fennel salad was prompted by fresh fennel from Whidbee's farm. Lemon grass that grew in his garden encrusted fresh salmon for an evening entree featuring Mediterranean sauce, feta cheese, olives, tomatoes and white anchovies. Japanese cucumbers and other Asian fruits from the Outer Banks garden gave King the idea for several Eastern entrees.

``Ken takes great care of all his crops. He hand-selects them and lets us look at them before we buy,'' King said. ``That's really unusual - to get to see what you're getting and know where it came from before you pay for produce.''

Although the eateries he sells to primarily cater to upscale clientele, Whidbee is as earthy as the land he tills. Mud-splotched boots stomp the ground from beneath the bottoms of well-worn blue jeans. And a plastic green slicker is buttoned over his faded denim shirt.

The farm, too, has a homey atmosphere. A hand-lettered sign painted on plywood greets visitors to ``Wanchese Produce.'' And a wooden plank with the bold, black word ``Arlo'' on its side protrudes from the center of a bed of herbs. It's a headstone for the grave of Whidbee's 13-year-old black lab, who died just as his business was beginning. The beloved pet protects the crops - and sends out good vibes, Whidbee said.

``A lot of this stuff just grew up by experimenting. I always throw in a few different sorts of seeds to see if crops fail whether it's my fault or something else. Sometimes, I work so hard getting the fertilizer composted and the rows tilled that I forget to put in the seeds - and so wonder why nothing comes up,'' he laughed, wrinkling the crow's feet surrounding his pale blue eyes.

``I probably should take more notes or pay more attention to what's going in and on around here. But what I'm doing seems to be working. So why?'' ILLUSTRATION: DREW WILSON color photos/The Virginian-Pilot

ORGANIC FARMING On his 2-acre farm in Wanchese, Ken Whidbee spends

his days getting the fertilizer composted, the rows tilled, seeds

planted and then hand-selects each piece of produce that he brings

for sale to restaurants.

A few pumpkin seeds have grown into a thriving farm business for the

Outer Banks landscaper.

Graphic

ABOUT THE FARM

In his organic garden at Wanchese Produce, Ken Whidbee grows

everything from salad greens to herbs to tropical fruits and

flowers. Most of his crops are sold to restaurants and caterers on

the Outer Banks and throughout Hampton Roads. But Whidbee also sells