Great Gardening Books: A Year at North Hill

Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd are gardeners on a whole different level than most people are, “fanatic” might be a good way to describe them. That being said, their books and very in depth and full of much useful information for the less “fanatical” gardener.
A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in a Vermont Gardenis a great book. It’s not a quick easy read being filled with many latin names for plants. It is full of ideas for new plants to purchase (I keep a notebook close by for taking notes and writing down plant names & descriptions). This book is arranged chronologically by month, which makes it a great reference. You can read each month before the month to get ideas for plants to use in your garden. All-in-all it’s a great book to read if you want some meat in your gardening books. This book doesn’t have a ton of photos and it’s filled with plant cultivars & the best growing conditions for them. Joe & Wayne’s writing style makes it easy to stay interested, they are talented at throwing in little stories here and there, in just the right spot to keep you interested.

I don’t think I enjoyed this book quite as much as, Living Seasonally, perhaps since I am more interested in growing a few edibles at this point. But it is still a worthwhile read if you like trying new & different plants, not the typical big garden store kind of plants. I think that eventually this book will make it onto my gardening book shelf, it will be a good reference book when I want to try new & interesting plants.

Visit their website if you would like to see some photos of the gardens at North Hill.

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Quote of the Day: Jamie Oliver

I’m a big Jamie Oliver fan, always have been. I’ve watched most of his cooking shows and his documentary/show about trying to make British State School food healthier. He’s definitely doing his part to make local, sustaineable food popular. I’m currently reading his cookbook/gardening book Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Lifeand it’s fantastic!

“I spent my childhood growing up in a village in Essex and I moved back there three or four years ago with my wife and kids. Like most people these days, with a busy family life and a hectic working schedule, I began to struggle with finding a balance between the two. I seem to have evened things up a bit now, and it’s all thanks to my veg garden, believe it or not. I love spending the odd hour out there, as it really relaxes me. You might think I sound like a complete hippie now, but growing my own veg for these past few years has filled me with such pride, pleasure, and passion. Witnessing changes in the garden through the year, having successes and failures, realizing that certain types of fruit or veg can have certain personalities and you have to work with them in different ways, it’s all just fascinating to me!

The garden has also made me think about food in a different way: about how it grows and what it stands for. To me, growing food at home means eating outside in the garden in the summer at family get-togethers and occasions, or cozying up next to a fire tucking into an amazing comforting stew or soup made with stuff from the garden which you’ve had to go outside and pull up in the rain! It might seem odd, but during the last sixteen years of training and working as a chef, I never thought I would ever grow stuff properly.”

Jamie Oliver: Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life

I’ve really enjoyed reading this book. I like that each chapter has growing how-to’s followed by recipes for those vegetables. Pick it up at your local library and give it a read!

Anyone have any other cookbooks they love and want to recommend?

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Great Gardening Books: Front Yard Idea Book

Lately I have been reading a bunch of books to get ideas for my front yard. We eventually are going to need to redo our driveway (it’s a terribly graded gravel driveway that turns into a river every time it rains and all of our gravel ends up in the road) I came across Taunton’s Front Yard Idea Book: How to Create a Welcoming Entry and Expand Your Outdoor Living Space (Idea Books). What a great book. There is a chapter on driveways and it explains all the different types of driveway material. This book is a great reference and would be great to read before you do any kind of driveway/hardscape installation. There a tons of great photos (which always make a great book better in my opinion). This book is a definite read if you’re looking for front yard ideas!

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Great Gardening Books: Front Yard Gardens

Lately I’ve been thinking about my front flowerbeds. I would like to make them bigger and includes few more bushes for structure.  I can’t really decide what to do, so I checked around to find a few books for inspiration.  I came across Front Yard Gardens: Growing More Than Grassby Liz Primeau. This book is about taking back your lawn to make more room for plants, which are more environmentally friendly for many reasons.

Liz starts off with a history of the lawn as we know it in the U.S., I was fascinated with the history.  She then shows many different front yard gardens and shows tons of photos of each.  I’m a HUGE fan of tons of photos in gardening book, so I loved this book.  She has examples of all different kinds of gardens: cottage, minimalist, woodland, prairie and more. She also shows her own garden and has photos throughout the years and explains all the steps she went through during her transition from lawn to gardens.  It is nice when garden authors show their own gardens, I’m always curious as to what their gardens look like and if they are as nice is they the ones they are featuring in their books/magazines.

This is a great resource for anyone wanting to expand the flowerbeds and take back your lawn.  I would highly recommend this book for the photos as well! It’s definitely an interesting read.

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Great Gardening Books: Creative Vegetable Gardening

Creative Vegetable Gardeningis a useful book if you are interested in growing vegetables in non-traditional way. There are no squares of tilled earth lined with rows of veggies in this book. The garden photos and plans are creative and beautiful, often including a mix of perennials, bushes and edible plants all in the same garden. These gardens have structure in the winter and beauty in the summer. There were tons a great photos in this book and many different garden plans that could be implemented in many differently sized & shaped gardens. Joy includes a lot details in this book. It explains in depth how to make your own espalier fence or fruit tree, how to lay a garden path, and how to build small garden structures out of natural material. There is also a section in the back devoted to all kinds of garden plants and their specific growing conditions & needs. This book would be a great reference book for anyone interested in growing a beautiful edible garden.

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