Since Monday’s book was about seed to table with children, I thought I’d talk about the “adult” version today.  There are many of these books around and as edible gardening  becomes more and more popular, there will be more of them.    The Complete Kitchen Garden, by Ellen Ecker Ogden, published last spring, is one of the best, however, and I think it will continue to be one of the better ones even as newer books are published.

The danger in having the word “Complete” in the title of a book is that it will fail to live up to expectations.  Happily, this is not so in The Complete Kitchen Garden.  Its author, a co-founder of the seed catalog The Cook’s Garden, is amazingly complete in this book, taking the reader from the garden’s very beginning of how to get started (with compost and learning about soil basics, of course), to how to select seeds and tools.

From there, 14 different garden designs are given.  Each design tells who it might be ideal for—the organic rotation garden is ideal for beginning gardeners and those who love order, for example, while the heirloom maze garden is for gardeners who like to connect to the love of greenery and history.

What is particularly well-done in this book is that the designs, advice and even the recipes are integrated within each section.  That might drive some folks crazy—orderly cooks, for example might prefer that all the recipes be in one section of the book.  But I found that the recipes integrated into each garden section worked well for me.

If, for example, I were growing her salad lovers garden (heavy on the lettuces) I would be grateful to find recipes for vinaigrettes and wilted chard and that sort of thing clustered together.  There is a recipe index at the back of the book so that more serious cooks can find recipes in the conventional way as well.

The book ends with a resources section and a brief section on preserving the bounty.  Of the very many types of “grow it, then cook it” types of books that are out there, this is definitely one of the best.  The fact that it is well-written, beautifully illustrated and well-photographed, makes it even more of a joy to own.

Now that both cold and snow (as you’ll see in a minute) have arrived, the wildlife have as well.  The birds have found the feeders again–this is a female downy woodpecker enjoying some suet.  Lots of others also enjoy this including nutchatches, red-bellied wodpeckers, and occasional hairy woodpecker–and the juncos are the clean-up crew for the scraps that fall.  Best of all, this feeder is pretty squirrel-proof.

I hadn’t seen too much evidence of deer in the yard–but these long, almost ski-like tracks prove they’ve been here.  I’m not sure what, if anything they’re eating.  They may have cleaned me out earlier this fall and are just passing through for a drink.

Once the backyard pond freezes like this, everything loves it, because they can just walk onto it and drink from the fountain.  You can see the tracks in the snow.  The lighter bird tracks aren’t as visible as the squirrel and deer tracks.

While we’re dreaming of our vegetable gardens for next year, why not plan for something that the whole family can actively be involved in?  In a book that’s a bit older than those I’ve talked about recently, DK Publishing (a British publisher but all the projects shown to translate to this side of “the pond”) has put out Grow It, Cook It: Simple Growing Projects and Delicious Recipes by DK Publishing (2008) to appeal to families who want easy projects that they can take from seed to table with their children.

The book will take the younger gardener/cook through the steps of growing vegetables, fruit and sunflowers and  then turning them into side dishes, main dishes and desserts.

Since evidence shows that kids are more likely to eat food they have prepared themselves, this is a great way to incorporate more vegetables into childrens’ diets.

And because the “Grow It” portion—or at least some of the preparation for it—is so simple—it’s appropriate for younger children as well so the book could be a great way to get the whole family involved.

DK is all about sustainability and recycling.  Wherever possible, they suggest using old, washed out containers to start seeds, fun painted popsicle sticks as plant markers, pizza box bottoms and soda bottle bottoms to decorate for garden ornaments.  Even clothes baskets, garbage cans and plastic tubs (with drainage holes carefully drilled by the parents of course) can be recycled into planters.

After 2 page chapters on how seeds grow, how to make compost and the magic of leaf mold [sp], it’s on to the cooking.  There are 2 pages of basic kitchen know how, then the recipes begins with a tomato/eggplant tower.  There is a 2 page layout on how to grow and harvest each vegetable, then two pages for the recipe: one page of actual instructions and a full-page picture of the finished dish.

The rest of the book follows the same format, with the last 2 pages providing 20 extra recipes for everything from lemon sorbet to tomato sauce to baked potato mice.

If I had any critique at all, it’s that some of the recipes assume a bit more knowledge than the average youngster might have.  But since they should be closely supervised in the kitchen, this should not be a problem.  Still, the adults should read the recipe closely before beginning to see what needs to be done.  The tomato/eggplant tower requires roasted blanched almonds with no instruction on how to do that.  Since they are just a garnish, however, it’s safe to say that you could skip that step—or skip the almonds entirely.

But that is a minor glitch in an otherwise beautiful, inventive book.  It’s definitely a treat for the senses. I would recommend this book to anyone who gardens with children—or who likes simpler, easy to follow recipes.

I have been a fan of the Baker Creek Seed Company for years–in fact, my order of seeds for the upcoming spring is already safe in my spare refrigerator (safe from the mice that is) and waiting to be started in about 6-8 weeks or so.

So when I heard that the owners of Baker Creek, the Gettles, had a book coming out, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.  The book, The Heirloom Life Gardener: The Baker Creek Way of Growing Your Own Food Easily and Naturally by Jere & Emilee Gettle with Meghan Sutherland is a lovely volume, beautifully put together, that  distills the wisdom of the lifestyle that became Baker Creek (and for those that don’t know much about it, it is more than a seed company.  It is a store, it publishes an heirloom gardening magazine and it puts on an heirloom life festival in Missouri every year) and is becoming the two newer businesses, the Petaluma Seed Bank, and Comstock, Ferre & Company in Wethersfield, CT as well.

The first part of the book talks about Jere’s childhood growing up, his adventures in searching the world for heirloom seeds, and a bit about the history of seeds in America.  His philosophy of organic gardening makes it sound completely natural, as of course, it is.  There is also some basic growing information on gardening, and some simple seed saving information.

The remainder of the book is an encyclopedia of different vegetables and how to grow each one.  While most are not unusual, there are the occasional oddities like cowpeas, amaranth or sorghum.  Farmers’ market regulars will recognize most everything in the book, but the varieties of the produce shown and the quality of the photographs, is what’s visually stunning, particularly to those who have never seen a Baker Creek catalog.

For anyone who likes home growing, this is a fascinating book.  It also makes a great read to learn more about the new owners of one of Connecticut’s local nurseries because, as it turns out, he and his family are pretty amazing too.

Winter always seems so isolating.  Even if there’s no snow, we rush from our homes to our cars and back again and rarely see one another–unless there’s a freak 60 degree day like there was a few weeks ago.

So I fill my bay windows with plants–so much so that my husband complains that he can’t see out at times. That way, even when it does snow, there’s something to remind me that spring will come.

Some of you may remember this orchid from my November posts of “bullet-proof” house plants.  This is ludesia dicolor, or the terrestrial orchid that will grow in ordinary potting soil.  It also goes by the name of the “Jewel Orchid” for its colorful leaves–but then so do many other orchids in its genus and related genuses so that’s why botanical names can be helpful.

At the time of the November post, the plant had little buds at the ends of some of the leaf tips.  This is what those buds opened into–and one flower spike is open but out of the photo–there are actually 3.

It’s easy to see how this Oncidium ‘Twinkle’ got its name–the flower spikes do seem to twinkle with little flowers. This particular variation has yellow flowers but there are variations with pink flowers as well.  The plant is incredibly fragrant as some oncidium are. And really, isn’t that what you’d like in the middle of a cold gray winter–a fragrant, flowering plant?

Much of the country is seasonal (and for those of you that don’t have seasons–well, you can skip this post) and even if you don’t have seasons that bring the abundant snowfall shown in Suzy Bales’ The Garden in Winter the book is still a visual treat for the senses.  So far this winter in my part of the country we have had very little snow (except for that freak October storm) and quite frankly, after the October storm and the record snowfall last winter, I’m enjoying just seeing bare earth for a change.

Bales, who has written for most of the women’s publications as well as many garden books, does seem to rely to snowfall to set off many of her photographs.  Nevertheless, many of the principles she discusses in designing a “winter” garden need not be concerned with snow at all, and in fact will be all the more important when there is no snow, such as in winters like these.

She discusses designing with trees and shrubs that use colorful bark, relying on conifers, and conifers that have colorful foliage to give the garden color, movement and texture.  deciduous shrubs have their place too, especially those with colorful bark, or those that produce a berry or persistent fruit like winterberry holly or some of the crab apples.

Even perennials have their place.  In addition to the usual winter blooming heaths and heathers, and some of the hellebores (this book is copyrighted 2007, just at the cusp of the current hellebore craze), pulmonarias (lungworts) and the primula genus are discussed as well.  She has a stunning photo of a hydrangea blossom–dried of course, on the shrub–encased in ice.  It shows its beauty in a whole new light.

Finally the early spring bulbs are discussed, as are ever green containers and making Christmas arrangements from the garden.  There are numerous books on gardening in winter but for scope, artistry, content and beauty of the photography, I’ve never found one that I’ve liked so well as this one. I turn to it again and again for inspiration–especially in a “brown” winter such as this.

I was quite excited to read Stephen Orr’s book, Tomorrow’s Garden: Design and Inspiration for A New Age of Gardening because all the reviewers loved the book. Well, this may be one of those cases that they discussed on Garden Rant last year where there is an abundance of niceness in the garden writing community.  It’s not that I didn’t find the book the be replete with lavish photographs–it’s just that I found it lacking in a few respects, and not quite sustainable in others.  Let me explain.

Tomorrow’s Garden makes every effort to walk the walk.  It is printed on recycled paper, without a dust jacket.  It talks sensibly about invasive plants and native plant use.  Its stated purpose is to attempt to show, through the photographs, beautiful gardens that have been created without waste.

And there are beautiful gardens in the book.  But it skews far too heavily toward California and the Southwest, with their reliance on agaves, manzanitas and lovely terraced hillside gardens.  Yes, these areas need help with xeriscaping.  But that is no excuse for ignoring whole swaths of the rest of the country.

Several gardens in the Northeast, specifically New York City and Nantucket are featured (and there is a Connecticut potter’s garden thrown in as well) but otherwise, whole regions of the Mid-Atlantic, upper Midwest and the heartland are ignored.  Perhaps we are to infer that the lessons shown translate by osmosis.  I’m not willing to make that inference.

In Part I of the book, the basics of gardening are laid out (know your site, your weather conditions, your own needs for your property). Part II introduces some unusual elements—so unusual in fact that only gardens in Texas and California are shown (with the exception of one small garden in Aspen).  These elements are the use of gravel and the use of steel.

Orr is a huge proponent of the use of gravel and stone—but then he goes on to tell us that these are really not sustainable materials because they are quarried materials, must often be trucked in, sometimes from long distances (unless they are recycled directly from the property) and both the quarrying and the trucking rely further on the use of fossil fuel.  Some sustainability!

Orr likes gravel as a “water-reducing” alternative to a lawn.  He clearly did not stop to consider the heat absorbing qualities of gravel and whether that might also contribute back to urban and suburban heat island effects. The same would be true of large uses of metal in the garden—he was showing whole walls of steel.

Part III is all about edible gardens.  Apparently we here in the Northeast are all about food and chickens because this is where we get the most press.  Chicago and the Pacific Northwest also make their first appearance here.

For authentic writing and better ideas on garden sustainability, spend your money on The New American Landscape, reviewed on Monday.

After October’s storm damaged so many trees, I started to notice some really unusual branches.  This is a sugar maple.

And here’s a sycamore that’s been really contorted!

Now that I hope I’ve convinced you not to eat supermarket tomatoes (and suddenly the Twitterverese is full of references to Tomatoland–lots of folks must have had some extra time to do some reading during December and I’m glad.  It’s wonderful to see this book get so much press.  And the beef industry should be scared–Barry Estabrook is now at work on an expose of CAFOs–factory farming of beef) I wanted to point out a great gardening book that I don’t think has gotten the press it’s deserved.  On Friday I’ll contrast it with another gardening book about sustainability that I think has gotten too much press for all the wrong reasons.

In The New American Landscape: Leading Voices on The Future of Sustainable Gardening, edited by Thomas Christopher, 10 leaders  in the sustainable gardening movement are brought together to give gardeners direction on how to garden with the least impact possible on the environment.  This book is designed as that roadmap.

After a Foreward from Christopher (dedicated on Earth Day, 2011—a nice touch), the leading essay called “Sustainable Solutions” provides an overview and 9 ways to have an immediate impact in the garden.  They range from the “right plant, right place” adage to more interesting ones like “attract or purchase beneficial organisms.

Other chapters go on to discuss how to manage a property as a sustainable SITE (something that will be comparable in landscaping to the green-building certification that LEED awards); how to manage water on the property; the role of the edible garden in sustainable landscaping (including harvesting rainwater); gardening in a changing climate; green roofs; landscapes to welcome wildlife (by Doug Tallamy); managing soil health; and finally, tying it all together, whole system garden design.

This is an important book about not only the future of gardening but about the future of the planet.  Many of us have already seen gardening change since we began gardening ourselves.  If the Native American saying is true, that we only borrow the planet from our grandchildren, we need to heed to lessons of this book and others like it to make sure they inherit the same wonderful place to garden that we all knew.

I first heard about the book Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook in Mark Bittman’s blog that he does for the New York Times.  Because the intersection of politics and food writing is one of my favorite types of writing, and of course because I love growing and eating tomatoes fresh from the backyard, I had to read the book.

Just from what Bittman had written in his blog I knew enough to expect very bad things.  The book reviews also tipped me off to how horrific the book would be.  But nothing really could prepare me for what I would read.

I know I have said it here before and on Twitter that I will not ever buy a supermarket tomato again–and I will not knowingly eat a tomato that comes from growers that do not support those workers.  But of course, how can you know, really?

What Estabrook uncovered in his book is that there are several growers in the heart of Florida who systematically exploit workers (I’m sure nothing I say here is yet a surprise).  What was a shock is that they are literally enslaved, routinely beaten, regularly promised one thing and then another is delivered, particularly with respect to wages–all the laws that I thought applied in our country do not apply to these workers, particularly when it comes to pesticides.

They are forced to live in the most primitive conditions without air conditioning and sometimes without even plumbing–some were forced to live in the backs of truck trailers sleeping on pallets where the temperatures routinely exceeded 100 degrees and there was no ventilation.

As for the pesticides–tomatoes are one of a few crops where a very toxic chemical–methyl bromide–that has been banned by the EPA is still permitted to be used–the others are strawberries and peppers.  The tomato plants are routinely sprayed while workers are in the fields–and workers are often working on plants dripping with wet pesticides.  Needless to say, the rate of illness among the workers is high and birth defects among their children is staggering.

Nevertheless, if workers were too ill to work, the “overseerers” beat them for “refusing” to work. Sound a bit like something that existed in the south prior to the Civil War to me. And Florida refuses to do much to help these poor workers–and many, because of their immigration status, refuse to ask for help.

Regardless of how you feel about the immigration issue, human beings should not be exploited in this manner–and we have seen what happens, most recently in Alabama, when farmers try to get local residents to help in the field.  It was a disaster.  Unfortunately until we get local workers used to farm work–and safe conditions in which they can work–this is the circumstance in which we find ourselves.

Estabrook begins and ends the book hunting for wild tomatoes in Peru. He also spends a small portion of the book talking about the US Supreme court case that legally declared that although botanically the tomato is a fruit, for commodity’s sake, it is a vegetable. It has always been known as a vegetable since then.

The book is a fascinating, if truly disturbing, look at the commoditization of a crop.  There have been some advances made in the treatment of these workers thanks to the good works of lawyers and worker rights groups in Florida.  And it is safe to buy tomatoes at Trader Joes and Whole Foods because they have signed a pledge to trade fairly with these workers.  But otherwise, I’d stay away from supermarket tomatoes because you can never know whether they have come from one of these major agri-businesses who treat their workers worse than cattle and poison the earth, the tomatoes and the workers with toxic pesticides.