The Kitchen Garden (Tp) Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Kitchen Garden" is devoted, as author Sylvia Thompson tells us forthrightly in the introduction, to the "unusual and rare" greens that most of us cannot find at the average American market. The book is divided into sections highlighting Asian greens, mustard greens, potherbs, and salad greens, with other entries being more descriptive: "Beans for Frying," "Cooking and Slicing Onions," and so forth.
Each entry gives not only the most typical gardener's name for a plant, but the Latin name and any other monikers as well. What follows each is her description of both the plant and her own experience with it; these miniature essays are the book's greatest pleasure, each being a deft weave of history, fact, and Thompson's own opinionated tips.
If your particular corner of God's green earth is too dry, too shady, or too anything, you will still be able to find some sort of solution for your problem in the graphically beautiful and informative pages of "The Kitchen Garden."

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From Container to Kitchen: Growing Fruits and Vegetables in Pots Review

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(More customer reviews)I was hoping for some tips and tricks to growing Fruits and Veggies in containers. At first when i read the first couple of pages before purchasing it seemed like the author was witty and experienced. Then after purchasing the book and reading the first 2 chapters I knew I made a mistake. The author started going into the spiritual and medical properties of plants for multiple chapters. Tell me how to make my plants produce more and you have won my heart. Tell me how patients who looked at pictures of plants got better faster and I think you are collecting royalties you don't deserve. He spent an entire chapter on how to buy and decorate pots. He left out a few technical details such as any measurement to define the small medium or large pots that he recommended for a few of the plants. He spent a chapter on proper soil preparation and nutrients, but never gave a recommendation or any actual amounts for different plants. He rambled on and on about where in your home potted plants could be placed and how they not only brighten up the home but have health benefits. Every time I thought I was going to get advise he backs out or changes the subject. I think all the tips and tricks put together if condensed could have been less than a single chapter and most could be found on the back of the seed packet. Most of the book was filler that had nothing to do with how to grow the plants. Do I really want to hear what he does when he gets up in the morning? Do I care where he lives and why? Should I be interested in how his home and pots are decorated or where the pots were found or how they were made? If you want to know more about the health benefits of container gardening this is the book for you. If you want to actually try container gardening don't choose this book. I wonder about most of the other reviews. Some look professional and almost make me want to read the book again to see if I missed all these helpful tips he gave. It also make me wonder if some of the reviewers were paid.

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More and more people are recognizing the need for nutritious, local, sustainable food, but organic options can be costly, and the produce sections of most supermarkets are packed with fruits and vegetables that have racked up more frequent flier miles than a rock band on world tour. How can urban dwellers without ready access to fertile land enjoy the benefits of traditional gardening? And for those with a yard, how do you maximize the harvest of fresh, healthy edibles?In From Container to Kitchen, D.J. Herda shows that there is a way. Written for the novice home gardener as well as the seasoned pro, this fully illustrated, comprehensive guide will show you how to save up to 70 percent on your produce bill by growing fruits and vegetables in pots. Topics include:Selecting the right container size and location Optimizing soil composition and nutrients Managing light, water, and humidity Choosing the best fruits and vegetables for container gardening Eliminating pests and plant diseases naturally Extending the harvest Dig in to this bumper crop of container gardening tips and techniques and learn how to create your own moveable feast!D.J. Herda is an award-winning freelance author, editor, and photojournalist who has written several thousand articles and more than eighty books, including Zen and the Art of Pond Building. He is an avid organic gardener and test grower and has been writing extensively about growing fruits and vegetables for over forty years.

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The Family Kitchen Garden: How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together Review

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(More customer reviews)I really enjoyed this book. Several reviews have focused on the book's "lack" of advice targeted specifically for young kids but the title is "The Family Kitchen Gardener" and I thought it did a great job of including ideas to get everyone in the family involved. The book is written by a British author and so you will need to adjust the planting schedules for North America however the author explains this. After a few chapters on the basics of gardening there is a month-by-month guide on what needs to be done in your garden. Interspersed you will find fun recipes and projects to do as a family. Finally the book includes an A-Z of the veggies, fruits, and flowers mentioned in the book.
I've been gardening for almost a year and have several gardening books in my library. This is definitely one of my favorites and I would recommend for new and old gardeners.
A side note: the majority of the plants discussed in the book are veggies. If you're interested in starting a family flower garden, this wouldn't be for you.


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Everyone wants healthy children who choose potatoes over chips and oranges over Oreos, but it isn't always easy to convince a picky child to try something new.The Family Kitchen Garden integrates the garden and kitchen in a simple, fun way that parents and children can enjoy together. By teaching kids how to garden, they will be more likely to eat what they grow -- what a rewarding way to encourage healthy foods!Unlike other guides to gardening with children, these are not simple projects just for kids. Rather, the authors believe that kids can do -- and will enjoy -- the same type of gardening that adults do. Part One focuses on the nitty-gritty of gardening with kids: how to keep sessions short, tips on how much to grow, and important safety precautions. Part Two is a month-by-month guide on what to sow, plant, harvest, and eat. Seasonal recipes include nutritious, kid-friendly foods like parsnip chips, rhubarb cake, and homemade ketchup. Part Three is an A-Z guide to vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers. Icons note which are plants particularly easy to grow and suitable for young children. The Family Kitchen Garden is for parents who want to get their kids outside and for families looking for simple ways to lead a healthier life. Grab your kids and get gardening!

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Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies: Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic Review

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(More customer reviews)Author Michael Olmert won his reputation writing Emmy award winning documentaries and scholarly, yet readable, books. Copiously illustrated with almost 100 black and white photographs of survivings outbuildings, Olmert's book gives an excellent overview of the various dependencies which served the large 18th century Tidewater or Chesapeake plantation house - their origins, evolutions, and functions. The book focuses on the kitchens, smokehouses, laundries, dairies, offices, icehouses, and dovecotes of large estates and prosperous plantations with little discussion of the types of outbuildings found on the typical small holders' farms. The book's subtitle, "Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic" is misleading. The Mid-Atlantic region includes New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. However, this book focused almost exclusively on the architecture of the Tidewater Virginia and Chesapeake Virginia and Maryland regions. There were absolutely no photographs of the Eighteenth-Century outbuildings constructed by the English and Dutch Colonists in New York and New Jersey, or by the English,Germanic, and Swiss settlers of Pennsylvania, nor was there anything written about these regions. As a resource for Mid-Atlantic architecture, this book is an enormous disappointment, and is not recommended. Had the book been marketed under a different title, revealing its true content, "Outbuildings and the Architecture of Daily Life in the Eighteenth-Century Tidewater Chesapeake Regions," I would have given it a higher rating. Unfortunately, a greedy publisher, attempting to appeal to a broader audience, chose deception in sub-titling this book. If you are looking for a book on interesting outbuilding of Virginia and Maryland, by all means buy this book. However, if you want a good book on the outbuildings of the Mid-Atlantic Region, this is not the book for you. "Architecture of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, 1700-1900" by Henry J. Kauffman offers an illustrated and well-annotated introductory overview of the English, German, and Swiss architectural designs found in southeastern Pa. Included are photographs of barns, furniture, smokehouses, icehouses, springhouses, summerhouses, privies, bake ovens, caves, and churches. This book is a better choice for those interested in the outbuildings of the Southestern Pennsylvania region.)Architecture of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, 1700-1900

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In Kitchens, Smokehouses, and Privies, Michael Olmert takes us into the eighteenth-century backyards of colonial America. He explores the many small outbuildings that can still be found at obscure rural farmsteads throughout the Tidewater and greater mid-Atlantic, in towns like Williamsburg and Annapolis, and at elite plantations such as Mount Vernon and Monticello.These structures were designed to support the performance of a single task: cooking food; washing clothes; smoking meat; storing last winter's ice; or keeping milk, cheese, and cream fresh. Privies and small offices are also addressed, as is the dovecote, in which doves were raised for their eggs, squab meat, feathers, and fertilizer. Often, these little buildings were clustered in such a way as to resemble a small village, knit together by similar design details and building materials: they were all constructed in weatherboards or in brick, for instance, or were arranged in a single file or positioned at the four corners of the yard.In this appealing book, featuring nearly a hundred crisp black-and-white photographs, Olmert explains how these well-made buildings actually functioned. He is riveted by the history of outbuildings: their architecture, patterns of use, folklore, and even their literary presence. In two appendixes he also considers octagonal and hexagonal structures, which had special significance, both doctrinal and cultural, in early America.Archaeologists and historians still have many questions about the design and function of outbuildings-questions that are often difficult to answer because of the ephemeral nature of these structures; they were not documented-any more than laundry rooms and storage units inspire rhapsodies today. Olmert's book, deeply grounded in scholarship, eminently readable, and profusely illustrated, takes these buildings seriously and gives them the attention they deserve.

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The Complete Kitchen Garden: The Art of Designing and Planting an Edible Garden Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is ideal for the coffee table but, as an informative book, it doesn't make the cut. The photographs are beautiful but the writing style lacks the punch necessary for how-to books and the reading is made more difficult by the injection of examples of different "kitchen gardens" in the midst of the chapters. Also, the gardens discussed are not such as could be duplicated by the average gardener, who does not have several acres of land to turn into a landscaped masterpiece.

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No longer a mere patch of vegetables close to the back door, the contemporary kitchen garden is a melange of personal flair and culinary practicality with the color of a flower garden. Patrick Bowe, a landscape/garden designer, is author of many books, including The Gardens of Ireland. Cynthia Woodyard is a well-known garden photographer whose credits includeAnnuals for Connoisseurs. 125 photos. 20 full-color line drawings.

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The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide: A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia Review

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(More customer reviews)I have to give THE KITCHEN GARDEN GROWERS' GUIDE by Stephen Albert a 5-star rating! I was delighted to get my copy of this thorough and knowledgeable vegetable and herb gardening guide (400 jam-packed pages, but not so big I can't actually take it into the garden with me). I have to admit there are a few gardening questions I can't answer. But when it comes to the vegetable garden, this book has brought all of the answers together in one place. Here's what I've found in this book:
* Planting, growing, harvesting, storing, and preparation details for 80 different vegetables and herbs. There are more plants listed here than any other vegetable gardening book I own. Seriously, it's all in this book. Things like each plant's form, height, breadth, root depth, bloom time, season and climate requirements, and soil requirements. Details on seed and transplant planting depth, germination and growing soil temperatures, days to germination and maturity, sowing time, transplanting time, plant spacing, water and light requirements, how to feed and fertilize, crop rotation, propagation, greenhouse growing, and container growing. All of that before you even get to harvest, storage, and kitchen preparation suggestions.
* Each plant is listed alphabetically by common name, but there is a second table of contents which lists each plant alphabetically by its botanical names. (Not to mention, the name of each plant is also listed in Spanish, French, German and several other languages.) In the index, I could find plants cross-referenced by common and scientific names. Now, I can finally understand exactly what I'm getting from the seed catalogs and talk to that lady at the garden center who always uses horticultural names.
* There's a beautiful identifying photograph and description to go with each plant. You could frame these photographs. Now I can finally identify salsify and sorrel at the market.
* Harvest and storage details and suggestions for using each plant in the kitchen.
* All of the measurements in this book are given in both standard and metric conversion. I can actually send this book as a gift to friends living outside of the United States.
* An appendix with a chart of first and last frost dates and the number of days in the growing season for 228 cities in the United States and Canada, and growing charts for the rest of the world.
* A glossary of plant and gardening terms, an index, and a bibliography of other helpful books. The glossary is one of the most complete I've ever seen: very useful!
This isn't a big coffee table book; it's a book I can actually carry with me into the garden.
The author is Stephen Albert and he has gardened all around the country, in Massachusetts, Florida, Iowa, and now in California. He's actually grown all of these plants in real gardens. At the end of the book he even gives his email address so I can ask questions about my first attempt at salsify. I give THE KITCHEN GARDEN GROWERS' GUIDE 5-stars and a golden garden trowel salute.


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A veritable encyclopedia and easy how-to guide on all that is natural and necessary in the world of gardening and small fruit, vegetable, and herb preparation, in The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide: A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia, Stephen Albert leaves no stone-collard green, leek, or potato-unearthed in this absolutely amazing field guide that greenhorns, old hands, weekend gardeners, and chefs should not be without. From the soil to the plate, this manual is exceptionally penned and easy to follow. It provides answers to basic and in-depth growing questions. It includes how to plant, how to grow and care for crops, how to harvest, how to store, and how to prepare vegetables and herbs. From asparagus and beet greens to Belgian endive and strawberries, this book helps readers organize a small garden close to the kitchen that offers their favorite, fresh-picked-at-the-peak-of-ripeness small crop-and the template on how to orchestrate the effort.

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The Kitchen Garden Review

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(More customer reviews)This book explained everything that I needed to know on how to grow a garden. Whick type of garden, where to grow the garden, and how to grow the garden. It tells you what to grow each month of the year.

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In tune with the popular move toward fresh, local, and homegrown food, The Kitchen Garden lets you get the most from your garden and helps to dramatically reduce the amount you spend on produce at the supermarket. The Kitchen Garden is the perfect companion for gardeners who want to turn their harvest into a meal while also seeking some measure of sustainability.

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The Kitchen Gardener's Handbook Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a gardener's book that shows plants in luscious pictures. Food is in beautiful plantings; lettuce among the boxwoods.
The book is divided into the 4 seasons and within each are; vegetables, sweets, greens, herbs, shrubs, flowers and the design for each season, then seasonal chores and menus. The same garden is shown in each season for design layout- basically an edible front yard.
I wish there were more pictures when examples are given, for example for those who do not know what a redbud looks like. This really is not a book for beginners. More direction is also needed--how do you plant cabbage heads? How do you harvest thyme? Do you use the leaves or do you need to dry and crumble them? This book sometimes raises more questions, than it definitely answers.
There are good recipes throughout, especially the pork tenderloin with apple and onion gravy.
The index is not really the easiest to use; if you look up herbs, it will tell you very little, you need to look up the individual names, they will not all be under the general label. Seed and fruit sources are given with their addresses, telephone numbers and web sites.
This would be a book for those who want to go deeper into gardening, especially those who wish to combine beauty and food and have an out of the ordinary garden.


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No longer content with separating the plants they grow to eat and the plants they grow for beauty, gardeners are discovering the pleasures of incorporating both edibles and ornamentals into their home landscapes. The Kitchen Gardener's Handbook makes it easy by showing how a well-designed landscape can yield both bounty for the table and beauty for the soul. Whether she's sharing tips on planting radishes in spring, harvesting tomatoes in summer, or pruning perennials in winter, Bartley's friendly advice gives gardeners the tools they need to build and maintain a kitchen garden. Readers will learn how to plant, grow, and harvest the best vegetables, fruits, greens, and herbs for every season. They'll also find seasonal recipes that celebrate the best of the harvest, monthly garden chores, eight sample garden designs, and information on using cut flowers for decoration. The Kitchen Gardener's Handbook is a guide for gardeners who want it all-the freshness of fruits and vegetables and the beauty and simplicity of hand-picked bouquets.

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The Complete Kitchen Garden: An Inspired Collection of Garden Designs and 100 Seasonal Recipes Review

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(More customer reviews)I am lucky enough to know Ellen Ecker Ogden and remember when this book was but a seed itself. It has turned out even better than I anticipated - as down-to-earth, friendly, warm and lovely as the author herself. As someone who loves to cook but struggles to find time/energy to do more than plant a few tomatoes and herbs and keep them alive every summer, I am inspired and reassured by the clear, straightforward gardening advice and the mouthwatering but uncomplicated recipes. The watercolor schematics are charming and the photographs beautiful, while also being informative. I'm mulling over my options (perhaps a hybrid of the cook's garden and family garden) and making Ellen's warm winter salad with roasted garlic dressing in the meantime.

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The Complete Kitchen Garden is an inspiring collection of garden designs and recipes for the home gardener and cook. based on the seasonal cycles of the garden, each chapter provides a new way to look at the planning stages with themes and designs such as "the salad lover's garden," "the heirloom maze garden," "the children's garden," and "the organic rotation garden." More than 100 recipes featuring the food grown in each specific garden encompass a full range of soups, salads, main course savory dishes, and desserts, as well as condiments and garnish to dress up the plate.Praise for The Complete Kitchen Garden:"With charming hand-drawn planting plans, bright color photos, and tempting recipes. . . . Ms. Ogden's book arms wannabe gardeners with all the tools to plan a productive garden before seeds ever meet the ground."—Wall Street Journal"There's no reason a vegetable garden must be an eyesore, banished to the corner by the garage. . . . The Complete Kitchen Garden . . . combines design advice, garden wisdom and recipes." -The Chicago Tribune

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