In My Library: the Edible Garden Edition
I realized that I haven’t featured books from my library recently. This time around, I settled on part of my edible gardening shelf.
We’ll start off with the newest addition to my shelf The Complete Kitchen Garden. This book is fantastic if you are wanting to set up a traditional pottage. It’s filled with layouts and ideas for including a small potager in your landscape.
In the French Kitchen Garden: The Joys of Cultivating a Potager is a sweet little book filled with beautiful watercolors of vegetables and garden layouts. I love watercolor art, so this book is a joy to look through.
Gardens of Plenty: The Art of the Potager Garden is a fantastic book for those of us that love to look at photos of grand edible gardens. Even though the gardens in this book are mostly large and very involved, there are lots of ideas that can be incorporated into the small home garden. This book is one of my favorites to flip through on a cold winter evening.
Next up is The Art of French Vegetable Gardening, an older book. Even though the photos are older and not as artistic as we’re used to with newer books, there are still lots of beautiful things to see inside.
My all time favorite edible gardening book is Creative Vegetable Gardening. This is the one book I would keep if I could only have one book on my shelf in the edible gardening section. If you want your edible garden to be pretty this is the book for you. This book is filled with loads of creative ideas, from the more classic to the more laid back garden styles. There’s definitely something for everyone in this book!
Classic cottage gardens are among the things I love, especially those that include vegetables, herbs and fruit. Naturally, I LOVE The Cottage Garden. This book made it’s way into my library many years ago, in fact it was one of the first books I purchased when I fell in love with edible gardening. There’s something captivating about traditional cottage gardens. This book is filled with beautiful imaged and wonderful ideas on how to make your garden like the stunning cottage gardens of England. I love pulling this book out on cold winter evenings and dreaming of my future cottage garden!
Do you have a favorite edible gardening book?
The Series:
In My Library – part 1
In My Library – part 2
In My Library – Part 3
In My Library – Birding Books
If you do want to purchase any of these books or anything else from Amazon, use my Amazon Link, I’ll earn a few pennies to help pay for my now outrageous hosting bill for this blog!
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Friday Favorite: Old Gardening Books
I’m a big fan of old gardening books, and I find myself frequently purchasing them at used book stores and for only a few dollars off Amazon. One of the reasons I like old gardening books is because they often offer more in depth information than is available in new books. There are times when I get frustrated with new books because they have to assume everyone is a beginner and there are a few chapters of the basics of gardening. It would be nice to have a disclaimer that the book is for more experienced gardeners and then give me more information about the topic at hand.
My most recent vintage gardening books are both by Thalasa Cruso. I have read many of her books ‘Making Things Grow’ is one of my favorites. This time around I purchased To Everything There Is a Season: The Gardening Year and Making Vegetables Grow.
I especially like the illustrations in Making Vegetables Grow. I’m considering purchasing another book just so I can cut them out and frame them.
I’m not sure where I originally heard about Thalasa, but these two books were recommended in To Eat: A Country Life, which I read recently while traveling. I think I heard about a few others in Onward and Upward in the Garden, another vintage gardening gem.
Do you have any oldies but goodies gardening books to recommend?
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Book Review: Eating on the Wild Side
A few months ago I was contacted by the publisher about reviewing Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health. Since I’m very keen on growing my own food and eating healthfully, I figured it would a perfect book for me.
After reading it, I really like this book and heartily recommend this book to all gardeners who are interested in growing the healthiest edibles. Even if you’re not a gardener you will find great advice in this book. Each chapter focuses on a different type of vegetable (like alliums, tomatoes, potatoes, etc). After explaining the history of each vegetable group, the author gives advice on how to choose the healthiest option of each whether you’re growing it or buying it. For example, when it comes to lettuce, the dark red varieties contain the most antioxidants. She also recommends enjoying greens that have a peppery taste or a slight bitterness, like radicchio and arugula. Since Jo is a gardener, recommendations for the most healthful varieties to grow in your garden are included in every chapter, which is in my opinion extremely valuable. She even includes options to look for at the supermarket so you can maximize your grocery dollars by selecting the most nutrient dense vegetables.
I also corresponded a little with the author. She sent me some beautiful photos of her garden in Seattle to share with you. Her gardens overlook Puget Sound and Mt Rainier, talk about a great view while gardening!
What I love about the recommendations in this book is that not only are the vegetables healthier, they’re stunning! Why wouldn’t you want to add these healthy, colorful vegetables to your garden?
What’s your favorite darkly colored vegetable?
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In My Library: Birding Books
Many of you are avid readers, like me, you are probably interested in what other people have on their bookshelves. While I was looking for a book the other day, the thought hit me that you might be interested in seeing what books I have gracing the shelves in my home. This will be a series, every now and then I’ll feature a few of the books on my shelf and tell you about them, where I got them, if I love them, etc.
Growing up, my parents were interested in birds. We had a bird book in the house and I can see where sightings of different birds were jotted down in the back. My parents gave us the book, but it was old and the photos were fairly faded. Proper identification was difficult at times. As a result, Mr Chiots and I have purchased a few new bird books to help up identify the feathered friends we see.
These books go with us as we travel, just in case we spy a new and interesting bird. They certainly come in handy. We love them both for different reasons. Stokes Birds is full of vibrant photos making it easy to identify birds. Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America is filled with detailed drawing that note the differences between birds of of the same family groups. We also have a bird ap for our iPad, we use it often when searching to identify birds we can only hear.
Do you have any good identification books?
The Series:
In My Library – part 1
In My Library – part 2
In My Library – Part 3
In My Library – Birding Books
In My Library: the Edible Garden Edition
If you do want to purchase any of these books or anything else from Amazon, use my Amazon Link, I’ll earn a few pennies to help pay for my now outrageous hosting bill for this blog!
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In My Library – part 3
Many of you are avid readers, like me, you are probably interested in what other people have on their bookshelves. While I was looking for a book the other day, the thought hit me that you might be interested in seeing what books I have gracing the shelves in my home. This will be a series, every now and then I’ll feature a few of the books on my shelf and tell you about them, where I got them, if I love them, etc. For part three, we’ll be looking at a section of my favorite fiction books.
I’m not much of a fiction reader, generally I find them a little less engaging that historical books or books about things I want to learn more about. There are a few exceptions, pretty much anything by John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway are sure to make me read late into the night. Here’s a glimpse into a portion of my fiction library.
If you asked me what my favorite fiction book of all time was, I would quickly respond “East of Eden“. John Steinbeck is my favorite novelist, I’ve read every book he’s ever written, many of them multiple times. While I love all of them, East of Eden is my favorite. What I most love about this book is the complexity. Modern fiction books don’t find their way onto my library list very often because I generally find them not engaging enough. My mind needs something complex or it wanders easily.
Grapes of Wrath is also in this stack, I’ve read it a few times. If you’ve never read it, I’d highly recommend it, it is labeled “classic” for a reason. Even though it’s fiction, it will give you a better idea of what life was like during the dust bowl and the depression. Grapes of Wrath reads like a history book, you can almost believe the characters are real. Feel good literature it is not, so don’t be expecting any of that. There is a lot of pain, suffering, grittiness and reality. When you do read it, think about all the migrant farm workers living in the same conditions now.
Hemmingway is also one of my favorites. Enduring Hemingway came to me by way of my dad, as you can see, like Grapes of Wrath, it’s an old library copy. These are my favorite kinds of books to buy. You feel a sense of history when you read them, knowing many people have leafed through their pages before you. Enduring Hemingway is a collection of his writings, if you’ve never read any of his stuff give this one a read. You can pick and choose from a wide range of his writings. This book is a hefty tome, coming in at 864 pages. It’s filled with 20 of his books, from The Old Man and the Sea to Farewell to Arms. It includes The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, which is one of my favorites and is part of The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, which if you’ve never read Hemingway I highly recommend starting here with these.
The last book on the shelf I have not read, at least in my adult life. I vaguely remember reading Sherlock Holmes as a kid, who doesn’t. Another classic book, I hope to read it this coming winter. Oddly enough, I actually have two copies of this book, both old library editions.
What’s your favorite “Classic”?
The Series:
In My Library – part 1
In My Library – part 2
In My Library – Part 3
In My Library – Birding Books
In My Library: the Edible Garden Edition
If you do want to purchase any of these books or anything else from Amazon, use my Amazon Link, I’ll earn a few pennies to help pay for my now outrageous hosting bill for this blog!
