By Peggy Sturdivant

Why am I poring over the troubleshooting section of a garden book as a result of a beautiful evening at Bastille Café and Bar? Who knew there were pests called cabbage loopers?

When Bastille opened four years ago on Ballard Avenue with press dedicated to its rooftop garden, I dismissed the possible crops as little more than a fresh herb or a bit of garnish. When a friend organized a rooftop garden tour last week I agreed to the date because it had been so long since I had seen my friends.

So I bicycled down to Bastille on yet another one of those stunning cloudless nights that defined early July. I had no expectations, just the $10 charge plus tax in my pocket. No matter how French Bastille tries to be, I still never confuse Ballard Avenue with the Champs Elysees.

The tour includes a cocktail, which is a foreign language for me. Luckily, it wasn’t necessary to know how to order one. Miles was mixing something complicated with ginger and Pyms, topped with cucumbers. In contrast to the black-clad wait staff, a lean, eager looking man in shorts and a Seattle Urban Farm Co. t-shirt approached the bar and then shied off when we remained focused on the cucumber slices. I realized he was one of two faces pictured on the cover of a book I’d seen at Sunset Hill Green Market, “Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard.”

It was time to put down the chilled glass and take out my notebook; this wasn’t going to be the hostess giving us a tour. We followed Brad Halm, cofounder of Seattle Urban Farm Co., up two flights of stairs to the 5,000 sq. ft. roof of the former Obermaier Machine Works building.

Although you can glimpse the crisply pressed napkins of place settings through skylights and look down at patio tables from the south side of the roof, the garden is the real thing. Halm told us that unlike most clients who want to incorporate a rooftop or urban garden, Bastille was interested at the front end. Additional steel trusses were incorporated into the initial renovation. Wet dirt can be awfully heavy for a flat roof.

While I never feel at home among the café fixtures culled from France I felt completely at home on the roof. Brad Halm and Urban Farm cofounder Colin McCrate both hail from Ohio, with degrees in Environmental Science. They have the same make-do-with-existing materials background as all of my Midwest relatives. Many of the garden beds consist of repurposed kid’s plastic swimming pools, encircled with old tubing and wrapped in former billboard material.

The Seattle Urban Farm Co. designed and built the garden beds, and they maintain it through up to three visits per week during the prime summer growing season. They use shade screens in the summer and polyethylene covers for a greenhouse effect during the cold season. Bastille is just one of three restaurants where they maintain a garden, but it is their showcase. Their services include everything from consulting with homeowners, schools and businesses to what they call the “full meal deal” in which they sow and the client reaps.

Halm readily admitted the garden’s yield doesn’t supply the restaurant’s huge needs, but it can almost provide all the salad greens. What’s ready for harvest at a given time in turn inspires Chef Jason Stoneburner to fashion certain specials. Look for French green beans in the near future, rooftop honey and Mexican sour gherkins. “Jason is really into it,” Halm said about the garden’s role in menu planning. If the timing is right, Halm and McCrate get to sample the dishes when there is a tasting for the staff.

The garden is in its fourth summer. Halm shared lessons learned and changes made, especially with soil amendment. The initial soil was pumped to the rooftop (the only access is two flights of interior stairs from the back bar). After two seasons the soil was lacking nutrients so Seattle Urban Farm Co. started a regimen of their homemade compost tea. Tomatoes were moved into Earthboxes, so as to mitigate the stress they were suffering between watering. “Crop rotation is key.”

The smell of garlic and those French fries they call frites weren’t just wafting up from below, they were being pumped to us. It was as beautiful as it gets on a summer evening in Ballard and we were on a rooftop enjoying a 360 degree view. Between the cooking smells and the variations of green in perfect rounds and rows, everything seemed possible. I would go right home and transform my attempt at a rooftop garden into a jewel like the one on Bastille. I would start my own seedlings and follow directions. I would learn which crops work best on rooftop, clinging to Halm’s assurance that problems and successes are similar “from rooftop to rooftop.”

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