No comments about Chef's Garden: Fresh Produce from Small Spaces.

No comments about Guide to South Carolina Vegetable Gardening.

1 comments about Feast Your Eyes: The Unexpected Beauty of Vegetable Gardens.

1. I was a little disappointed in this book. It is primarily a history of some famous gardens which have been covered more completely elsewhere. The photos are for the most part very old and not as clear as they should be, and there were not enough of them. There are a couple of interesting topics such as an outline of the use of victory gardens during WWI & II, and a small section on Aztec gardens created in a marsh. Otherwise not worth it. I was looking for something more like 'Creative Vegetable Gardening' by Joy Larkom - but this was not it.

2 comments about The Gardener's Table: A Guide to Natural Vegetable Growing and Cooking.

1. Rich Merrill knows what he is writing about! His details regarding various garden crops are totally on the mark. I am an avid gardener, and I consult this book weekly to assist me in gardening decisions. The food part, with the recipes from Joe Ortiz, is absolutely the best if you're a gardener, with a huge harvest of anything from your garden. I love this book, and and consider it a true text for anyone who really wants to succeed at gardening and at eating!



2. `The Gardner's Table' by noted baker, Joe Ortiz and agricultural academic, Richard Merrill attracted me with Ortiz' name, known from his two excellent book collaborations on baking. And, I was immediately impressed by some of the novel graphic culinary material. Closer reading showed me that the horticultural material was of an equally high quality.
   
   While I have read and reviewed hundreds of cookbooks and am much more familiar with the culinary content of this book, I have read a few gardening books in my time and turned a few clods of dirt in summers past, so I am not a complete newby with the gardening advice. I say this because it may have influenced my impression that the gardening advice is a lot stronger than the culinary advice. It may simply be that I am much more familiar with the culinary material, so it impresses me less. That being said, I will summarily say that I think one will have to look far and wide to find a book that does as good a job as combining these two closely related disciplines. I have reviewed only two, `The Arrows Cookbook' by culinary professionals who are horticultural amateurs with a good sized kitchen garden in Maine, and `Oriental Vegetables' by Joy Larkcom who seems to be an especially talented amateur at both cooking and gardening. Both are good books in their own little worlds, but neither can hold a candle to the wide world opened by this excellent volume.
   
   The book is organized with alternating horticultural and culinary chapters where each author discusses his specialities at a pretty high level of expertise. There is no dumbing up of the material here. There are a few weak attempts to show similarities between culinary and horticultural techniques as in the analogous methods for producing a stock and a compost tea. These are cute, but the real common platform for the two disciplines is nutrition. How do you get the greatest yield of nutrients out of either a patch of ground or a batch of cooked veggies?
   
   There are four major chapters, each beginning with a horticultural exposition followed by a culinary exposition. The first chapter may have the most important horticultural section, as it deals with climate and microclimates, choosing the best plants, planning your plantings, starting seedlings, planting in season, and rotating crops around your garden. One of the symptoms that this is not rote gardening advice is the agonizing over interpreting all the various planting zones. There are three with very different criteria and the most common, the USDA scheme based on the number of warm days can be very misleading. The culinary section to the first chapter is a bit weak and until I got to the second chapter, I thought maybe gardener Merrill was doing all the heavy lifting in this book.
   
   The second chapter begins with a horticultural section devoted exclusively to getting to know your soil and improving it. In this chapter, the culinary section really picks up and offers us something really new. The section is primarily about pantry preparations such as gremolata, bouquet garni, harissa, fines herbes, and lots and lots of vinaigrettes. The high point of the culinary section in this chapter is what is called `The Mesclun Wheel' that places greens on a circular scale of most tart to sweetest with dandelion being at the sharpest and butterhead lettuce being the mildest. This would be interesting in itself, but the author doubles the interest by plotting vinaigrette ingredients against types of greens to show how to match up dressings with greens. This is the kind of wisdom that is rarely so effectively summarized and which is commonly acquired only after years of reading and experimenting with salads. This is the kind of schema a cook probably pulls forward in his mind when they plan a salad based on available ingredients.
   
   The third chapter opens with every organic gardener's favorite topic, composting, and its related topics, humus and mulching. Having taken a few turns with a compost pile and having read a few Rodale Press items on the subject, I was still surprised to find something new to me, which was vermicomposting, or creating an environment which encourages worms to actively work on composting your biological waste. The culinary section deals with stocks and soups. The things which distinguish this section from your average introduction to soups are the discussions of combining vegetables to get the healthiest result and tips on preparing to cook in bulk. I find the emphasis on steaming as a method to preserve nutrients in vegetables to be pretty depressing, but the author redeems himself a bit by pointing out that cooking by several different methods is superior to eating raw vegetables, as cooking releases the nutrients in most veggies and makes them more easily available to our digestion.
   
   The opening to the fourth chapter deals with garden pests, both animal and vegetable, and plants and animals that can assist in the battle with pests. For a book that is sharing its 470 pages between horticultural and culinary material, this discussion is remarkably detailed, including sidebars on equipment and techniques for examining garden fauna and a display of the life cycles of some of the most common pesky insects. This book would be superior on its own, but it enhances its value immeasurably by offering a detailed chapter by chapter bibliography which has more details on the many different topics touched upon in this book.
   
   The second half of the book is something of an encyclopedia of the growing and eating attributes of the plants most commonly grown in the United States. Even this section has its pleasures to the casual reader, as it is very nicely organized by type of plant rather than by the alphabet.
   
   To an old `Whole Earth Catalog' hippie like me, this book is pure gold. To anyone interested in both subjects but who is weak in one, I highly recommend this book!

5 comments about Gardening from Seed: The Keys to Success with Flowers and Vegetables (Martha Stewart Magazine).

1. I bought a house in February (my first) and was so excited to plant that I started seeds indoors ... then came: "What do I do now! " This book is helping me grow all kinds of vegetables and flowers indoors first, in anticipation of Spring, Summer, Fall .... thanks, Martha.



2. The latest installment of the Martha Stewart book collection is, of course, filled with extravagant, glossy pictures, tips from insiders, and suggested retailers from whom to buy certain products which, presumably, Martha uses herself. However, this tiny book leaves something to be desired. First, several terms are introduced in the meat of the book that are never defined in the glossary or elsewhere (e.g. "deadheading"). Second, the instructions stop at the outdoor-planting phase, thus failing to inform readers on how best to prune plants and how to harvest seeds directly from plants for future use. Third, there are a number of typographical errors not usually associated with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. While the plant index toward the back of the guide is useful, as is the section on tips for eradicating garden pests, your best bet is to purchase a more thorough (and, yes, more expensive) book from Burpee or Better Homes and Gardens if you want an in-depth and all-inclusive guide to the world of gardening from seed.



3. Gardening from Seed is a very indispensible book about gardening . It covers all aspects of gardening, from flowers to vegetables. I love this book !!!!!



4. Not too bad. Good for beginner as a general overview but not enough information I was expecting to find.



5. Book does not have a lot of solid information a gardener can use. Lots of beautiful photos but not enough tips to succeed on creating a garden from seed.

No comments about Guide to Louisiana Vegetable Gardening.

No comments about Vegetables (Agile Rabbit Editions).

1 comments about The Edible Italian Garden (Edible Garden Series).

1. You don't have to be a gardener to appreciate Rosalind's latest book. She takes you by the hand as she describes the vegetable gardens and produce markets she visited in Italy. BTW, you won't need to fly out of the country to see one of the most spectacular gardens, The Sebastiani Winery gardens in Sonoma Valley (California). Want to start a garden? Choose the veggies from the Italian Garden Encyclopedia and use the rare seed sources listed in the back of the book. Want to start cooking right away? Thumb through the recipes for inspiration. New to gardening altogether? Read the author's sage advice on planting, maintenance and pest control. I particularly recommend this book to the struggling dieter as it will give you a new appreciation for vegetables and a great workout in the garden!

No comments about Practical Gardener's Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruit and Herbs: A complete how-to handbook for gardening for the table, from planning and preparation ... and herbs (Practical Guide to Growing).

3 comments about How-to-Grow World Class Giant Pumpkins II: Sequel to the Classic Book on Growing Giant Pumpkins.

1. I have read and enjoyed this book - more importantly the information was great in helping my pumpkins grow larger. The intended audience is one who wishes to grow BIG, and I mean BIG pumpkins. Growing large pumpkins can be done by anyone (with the help of this book). It is also a fun hobby that you can enjoy with your children. There is nothing like putting a 500+ pound orange jack-o-lantern on your front porch on Halloween and letting the neighborhood enjoy the sight of it. No one I have ever met does not smile when they see a big object like a giant pumpkin, it is guaranteed a great conversation piece. This book helps you learn about seed, soil, growing techniques, watering, and contests and even displaying your fruit after it is harvested. The author has spent lots of time fully researching this hobby and has done a great job of presenting the material of this unique endeavor to anyone who might enjoy gardening or growing large curabits. The pictures alone are worth the price of this book! This book is much better than World Class Giant Pumpkins the previous one by the same author. There are three or four other books or articles regarding this subject that are not as extensive as this one. If growing pumpkins is something you might enjoy or you have already tried to grow pumpkins and were not happy with the results this book will prove invaluable.



2. This colorful, informative book covers everything a grower needs to know to grow a pumpkin that will be the envy of the neighborhood. I give a tremendous amount of credit to this book for having helped me to grow an 819 pound pumpkin. If you have any desire to grow a giant pumpkin, then this book is worth its weight in gourds.

   Read this book and start a hobby that will last a lifetime.




3. I really love a how-to book that uses great photos to illustrate. This book is perhaps that best that I have seen in this regard. The photos are simply superb. I think photos in a book like this should be one part "eye candy" to draw interest, and two parts used to illustrate a point or to inform. Again, this book is the best I've seen on this point.

   The writing is also excellent. Its well researched and well written in a simple, yet pleasing style. Of course, if you're into growing giant pumpkins this book is absolutely essential, and you probably have it, or should get it. If you're not into pumpkins but want to write a "how-to" book, get this one to see the best.