Sign up with email

or

Already a member? Log in.

Trouble logging in?

Not a member? Sign up!

I’m sitting in the shade of a gardener’s shack with a mad man. At least, that’s what he says he is, though his cloud of white hair, smiling face and cordial manner are reassuringly benign. The garden itself is an ebullience of tomatoes, potatoes, zukes, cukes and eggplant and is especially unusual in Kifisia, the affluent suburb north of Athens, where lawns are prized as a status symbol.

“You’d have to be mad to do what I did here in Kifisia,” says Petros with a huge grin. Now retired, his passion for growing vegetables keeps growing. He just started another garden on the slopes of Pendeli, but it was his original vegetable patch in Halandri, the northeastern suburb where he lives, that led to this mad venture.

Petros loves giving his crops away as much as he loves tending them. And because his garden in Halandri always produces more than his family can use, he used to distribute its bounty to friends and establishments in his neighborhood. “Besides the kiosk newsstand, I’d take vegetables to the kafeneion.” A couple of years ago, “I happened to go by with some cucumbers – you know how well they go with ouzo – and I offered them to a parea [group of buddies] sitting at a table outside. One of the men got really excited, sat me down and started asking me about my garden. Several ouzos later we were in his car driving up here to see whether we could make this abandoned property of his into a baxés.” Petros uses the common Turkish word meaning “vegetable garden,” rather than the Greek perivóli, and then tells me his surname is Baxevanis, or “gardener.”

“He’d said there was water, but we had a devil of a time finding it. First we had to empty the plot of all the rubbish, junk, weeds and dead branches. That took 15 truckloads. And when we finally found the borehole, it had run dry from lack of use. Never mind, I said, we’ll use mains water and think about the bills later.”

As soon as his efforts began to bear fruit, they started attracting attention. The garden has been written up in the local newpaper, the mayor has been to visit, and strangers like me drop in daily, sometimes in groups.

Some of the vegetables go to the municipality’s social services for needy families, while others go to a home for handicapped children. This year, he’s worried he may not be able to continue through the winter. “I need to have some steady customers. People who will come by every week and leave, say, 10 euros for a box of vegetables, raised the old-fashioned way, without fertilizers, pesticides or hormones. I like to call them homegrown, rather than organic – I’m not always convinced by that claim. Of course, they may be more expensive than the farmers’ market, what do you think? I can’t put a price on them. I just say, ‘Pay what you think they’re worth.’ Not, ‘whatever you want.’ Do you see the difference?”

At the new baxés on Pendeli, Petros hosts a nursery school, two minivans crammed with tots. He was upset because he’d prepared for 20 kids and 40 turned up. But in the end they all got something to take home, along with a note for their parents about the garden. “Maybe a few will become friends and customers; one or two may even take the message further and encourage their older children’s schools to start a garden.

“Now, with so many people going hungry, the schools could produce food for families. But I’ll be happy if only one or two children develop a love of growing things and continue doing that when they’re older.”

Petros also dreams of convincing the owners of the big, lawn-covered properties in Kifisia to convert a piece of their thirsty greenery into a vegetable patch. He will offer hands-on advice to anyone who wants to make the change. “I put in a lawn myself when I built my house in Halandri, but slowly, slowly I dug it up and put in vegetables. Now the only grass that’s left is the paths that divide them. They’ll probably think I’m mad, but it’s worth a try.”

After I first met Petros, I looked up baxés in my Greek-English dictionary. Besides “garden,” there is another definition: to say that someone is baxés means “his heart is in the right place.”

Petros’s garden is located at Ionias 23 in Kifisia, between Harilaou Trikoupi and Kifisias Avenue near the Erythrea stop light, at the level of A/B supermarket. He’s there every day except Sunday between 8am and 12:30pm. His home phone is 210 682 0601. If you stop by, tell him Diana sent you.

  • Building BlocksSeptember 27, 2023 Building Blocks (0)
    Editor's note: Our recurring feature, Building Blocks, focuses on foods and ingredients […] Posted in Athens
  • In the House of CodMarch 12, 2020 In the House of Cod (0)
    In Spain, preserving the rituals of Lent – historically a period of 40 days of prayer, […] Posted in Barcelona
  • Comida ExoticaSeptember 7, 2019 Comida Exotica (0)
    The oft-heard quote from Pablo Neruda, “Mexico is in its markets,” is rarely truer than […] Posted in Mexico City

Published on October 02, 2013

Related stories

September 27, 2023

Building Blocks: The Sweet Science of Making Greek Honey

Athens | By Diana Farr Louis
AthensEditor's note: Our recurring feature, Building Blocks, focuses on foods and ingredients that are fundamental to the cuisines we write about. This may come as a surprise, but little Greece is Europe’s fourth most important honey producer after Spain, Germany and Hungary. Every year, between 12,000 and 17,000 tons of this liquid gold are stolen…
March 12, 2020

In the House of Cod: Lent and Easter in Barcelona

Barcelona | By Paula Mourenza
BarcelonaIn Spain, preserving the rituals of Lent – historically a period of 40 days of prayer, penance and pious abstinence from eating meat that leads up to Easter – was up until the second half of the 20th century mostly the responsibility of priests. Nowadays, however, it is more often the country’s chefs who are…
market mexico city tofu
Feast on the building blocks of Mexican cooking on our Market Watch walk!
September 7, 2019

Comida Exotica: The Illustrious and Exquisite Mercado de San Juan Pugibet

Mexico City | By James Young and Alfredo Balanescu
Mexico CityThe oft-heard quote from Pablo Neruda, “Mexico is in its markets,” is rarely truer than at the Mercado San Juan de Pugibet. Not only is Pugibet likely the only market on the face of the planet where you can pick up bok choy, ostrich meat, black-eyed peas and chicatana salsa (made from Oaxacan flying ants!)…
Select your currency
USD United States (US) dollar
EUR Euro