The Kitchen Gardenrs Handbook

Description

While the book focuses on planting an easy-to-grow kitchen garden, it also provides 99 mouth-watering recipes and includes suggestions for complementary floral decorations, sample garden designs, seasonal menus, and a list of tasks for the garden according to the season. More than 180 gorgeous photographs illustrate the plants, recipes, and table decorations. In short, The Kitchen Garden Companion provides a roadmap for gardeners who want it all-the freshness and wholeness of fruits and vegetables plus the beauty of cultivated (or wild) flowers. This is gardening at its richest and most satisfying.

Jennifer R. Bartley spent her childhood in the great outdoors: picking wildflowers, building forts in an old ravine, and sleeping under the stars. She savored these special childhood places and obtained from them a profound sense of nature's importance, which fostered her love of beautiful gardens that embrace a simple life connected to the landscape. Jennifer studied landscape architecture at Ohio State University, where she obtained her master's degree and has served as an adjunct professor in the design studio. She is now a private landscape designer, artist, and photographer. She has studied traditional kitchen gardens throughout France, and has created her own versions of these gardens for American chefs and gardeners devoted to fresh and local food. Jennifer is married and has five children. She enjoys digital photography, cooking for friends and family, rollerblading, growing heirloom vegetables from seed, and working in her home garden.

"It's a book you can't help but tuck with scraps of paper, and turn-down page corners, as you harvest a bumper crop of fine ideas." --Chicago Tribune "Lovely photographs succinct to-do lists." --American Gardener "Will resonate with folks who have some space and are looking to improve it with a year-round beautiful and edible outdoor yard." --ForeWord Magazine "If edible gardening is your passion, then this seasonally organized book, brimming with useful information, will come in handy." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "One of the most complete kitchen gardener's aids we've ever seen. From design to cultivation advice to crop suggestions to recipes this book has it all." --GourmetSeed.com "Filled with lovely photographs and detailed landscape plans, the book is a pleasure to look at." --Gulf Coast Local Food "I have rarely seen a gardening book with such useful photos and illustrations, or one that does such a good job of making sure the images and text work together." --Diggin' The Dirt "Bartley uses this book to guide the gardener to incorporate edibles into the ornamental landscape, a very worthwhile endeavor for those with limited gardening space. . . . A good choice for gardeners to want both beauty and good food from the same garden." --Danville Register & Bee "If you are looking at gardening more from the chef viewpoint. . . . this book provides similar growing information and designs, but the real focus is the end products -- the many recipes that use seasonal vegetables and fruits." --SustainableHort.com "A helpful, practical and beautifully compiled guide to growing what one wants to eat." --Lemuria Bookstore Blog