Creative Vegetable Gardening
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Joy Larkcom believes passionately that a vegetable garden, whatever its size, can be as beautiful as a conventional garden of flowers and shrubs. In Creative Vegetable Gardening she shows how the principles of good design can be applied to a kitchen plot and how to use the vibrant textures, colours, and forms of vegetables, herbs and fruit to create glorious effects and intriguing patterns without jeopardizing their productivity.
Inspirational colour photographs of potagers and kitchen plots capture the essence of the creative approach to vegetable growing. Techniques are described in clear stages and illustrated with full-colour step-by-step artworks, while an A-Z directory includes more than 150 edible plants with key facts on their cultivation, supplemented with ideas on how to grow them to maximum ornamental effect. Beautifully illustrated, intricate plans of five types of potager - formal, informal, small, urban and winter - add to the wealth of inspirational information.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's no longer sufficient to have vegetables marching in tidy military rows through plots reserved for only edibles. British garden writer Larkcom suggests ways to enliven vegetable gardens by adding flowers, arches, arbors or free-standing decorative items. Beginning with a brief overview of the potager, the centuries-old concept of vegetable gardening in France, she moves from vast elegantly designed gardens to the practical, with photos of British gardens she knows. Elements of design and siting are explained and beautifully illustrated in sufficient detail for even novice gardeners who want to embellish their vegetable patches with colorful unexpected elements. Taking on all details, from myriad variations on fencing, edging and garden paths to the multiple color and texture diversity of various lettuces, spinaches and other greens, Larkcom also offers a comprehensive alphabetical directory of vegetables (including little-known varieties). While Larkcom's prose is enthusiastic and exact, the book's appeal is limited to gardening zones with climates similar to England's. Gardeners in other regions may find that recommended plants don't thrive as hoped or that the companion plantings will not combine as expected.
