When offered a plot at the community garden, I thought it would be fun to invite other families to learn to grow food together. As a science teacher, I knew that for toddlers, digging in the dirt and growing plants for food could plant seeds for a life-long love of exploring nature, hands-on science inquiry, environmental stewardship, and joy in healthy eating. As we gardened, I noticed what questions children and their parents had, and how we found the answers together. I wrote the picture book How to Say Hello to A Worm: A First Guide to Outside to inspire more kids and their parents to get their hands dirty.
When I was very small, planting peas in the garden with my grandfather, I felt like a sorcerer's apprentice being initiated into a realm of magic. Carron Brown'sSecrets of the Vegetable Garden brings me back to that age of wonder by setting up mysteries to solve. Holding pages up to the sunlight reveals the answers to mysteries and riddles, and shows us what is secretly happening: potatoes growing under the earth, or seeds forming inside a fruit.
What is hidden in the world around us? For ages 3 and up, the uniquely designed Shine-A-Light series of books uncovers the facts behind a diverse range of places and topics through hidden images that are revealed by light. First, view a full-colour scene and read about what is pictured - but what else is there? Shine a torch behind the page, or hold it up to the light, to reveal what is hidden. Turn the page to read fun facts about the hidden image in black and white. A world of surprises awaits!
I've been gardening my whole life, starting on my Italian grandfather's farm in Connecticut. As an adult, I've always been an organic gardener and constantly looking for new ways to garden more in tune with Nature, disrupting the soil less while still producing an abundance of vegetables, flowers, and herbs. Certainly, I've learned from experience but also learned from my University education and 10 years of working for National Gardening magazine interviewing expert gardeners across the country. My wife Wendy and I are mostly self-sufficient in vegetables and berries from spring until fall. I also love trying new types of edibles such as honeyberries, tromboncino vining squash, and cucamelons in the garden.
CaliKim has created a large following on her YouTube channel for vegetable gardeners struggling to grow food in small spaces. Her book emphasizes her practical and direct approach to growing food, starting with tips on seed starting to ways of harvesting. Living in a dry climate, the book emphasizes ways to efficiently water veggies and deal with extreme weather for the best production. I like how CaliKim has good advice on ways to transplant and care for your garden vegetables.
If you want to grow healthy vegetables at home, but have hesitated because it seems too hard and time consuming, Organic Gardening for Everyone is your perfect hands-on guide—an “if I can do it, you can do it” case study that addresses your concerns and gets you started.
Loaded with practical advice and step-by-step guidance, Organic Gardening for Everyone takes a very personal and friendly approach to a subject that can be intimidating. It is a first-class primer on organic vegetable gardening, and an inspirational story about how anyone can balance the rigors of gardening with the demands of a…
Veg. I grow it; I nurture it; I shield it from cold winds, protect it from voracious pigeons, warm it against sudden frosts. And then I share it with friends, family, and neighbours… and we eat it. In between times I might write something gardeny or historical, but you’ll usually find me back on my veg plot, a little urban allotment in the west of England. I do a lot of reading there too!
A well-followed YouTuber, Huw Richards is a relative newcomer to the vegetable garden, one of the new generation. I like the way he explores the rich potential of the raised bed – that’s right: just one. And he manages to incorporate every backyard trick from harvesting pea shoots to making compost. As ambitious as it’s appealing, his Veg in One Bed will probably persuade most backyard veggie growers to expand their plots before the first season is even over.
"Huw Richards is the future of gardening" (The Guardian)
"This beautifully illustrated book teaches you what to do month-by month in order to have success in the garden"(The Sun)
"Ideal for new allotmenteers and gardeners starting to dabble in growing their own crops" (The English Garden)
In just one raised bed, greenfingered wunderkind Huw Richards shows you how to grow vegetables, organically, abundantly and inexpensively so you have something to harvest every month of the year.
Grow your own vegetable garden with this practical, straightforward gardening guide.
I'm an herbalist dedicated to teaching people practical approaches to herbalism and creativity. I do this on my Substack, in clinical intakes with my herbal clients (I work mostly with artists), and in workshops and classes. My life and herbal practice revolve around food. I’ve cooked professionally for over 15 years, worked on organic farms, and grow food at home for myself and pollinators in my region. The best bet we have at caring for ourselves and our communities is through the food we grow, buy, prepare, and eat. I like to say most people are already doing herbalism, they just don’t know it's happening in their kitchens at breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.
Wild Flavors follows Chef Didi Emmons over a year on farmer Eva Sommaripa’s farm 80 miles southeast of Boston.
Working as a line cook at Prune, Chef Gabrielle Hamilton gave me unforgettably simple advice as I struggled week after week to prepare a family meal on the fly: “you learn to cook by following recipes.” Duh! Five years later I followed recipes and learned to cook. I enrolled in herbal study at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Brookline, MA.
I cooked out of Wild Flavors throughout my apprenticeship. Many of the plants we studied that year appeared in Wild Flavors in thoughtful, seasonal recipes that brought medicinal plants out of the classroom and into my kitchen, where they came to life.
Recipes like Chickweed Cheddar Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, sound familiar but feature unconventional, medicinal plant ingredients hiding in plain site in the fields and forests surrounding Eva’s Garden.
The minute Didi Emmons, a chef from Boston, met Eva Sommaripa—a near legendary farmer whose 200-plus uncommon herbs, greens, and edible “weeds” grace the menus of many famous restaurants in the Northeast—something amazing happened. Not only did Eva’s Garden become Didi’s refuge and herb-infused Shangri-La, the two women also forged a lasting friendship that has blossomed and endured over time.
Wild Flavors follows a year at Eva’s Garden through the seasons. It showcases Emmons’s creative talents, featuring herbs (African basil, calaminth, lovage) and wild foods (autumn olives, wild roses, Japanese knotweed). The author provides growing or foraging information for each…
I’ve been a fan of vegetables as long as I can remember, I went plant-based as a young girl and have never looked back. I love to celebrate vegetables in their wholesome, vibrant goodness and put them at the center of your diet. I love nothing more than pairing different flavours and textures to create feel-good food that tastes as good as it does for you and the planet. I have been running my blog – Rebel Recipes for over 6 years and have four plant-based cookbooks with fans from across the globe!
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is one of my heroes. He blazed a trail for championing vegetables and seasonality. The recipes here are all delicious, wholesome, accessible, and exactly what you want to eat. Never preachy, but naturally healthy and nourishing. There are over 200 recipes so there’s something for everyone.
A comprehensive collection of 200+ recipes that embrace vegetarian cuisine as the centerpiece of a meal, from the leading food authority behind the critically acclaimed River Cottageseries.
Pioneering champion of sustainable foods Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall embraces all manner of vegetables in his latest cookbook, an inventive offering of more than two hundred vegetable-based recipes, including more than sixty vegan recipes. Having undergone a revolution in his personal eating habits, Fearnley-Whittingstall changed his culinary focus from meat to vegetables, and now passionately shares the joys of vegetable-centric food with recipes such as Kale and Mushroom Lasagna; Herby, Peanutty, Noodly Salad; and Winter…
When offered a plot at the community garden, I thought it would be fun to invite other families to learn to grow food together. As a science teacher, I knew that for toddlers, digging in the dirt and growing plants for food could plant seeds for a life-long love of exploring nature, hands-on science inquiry, environmental stewardship, and joy in healthy eating. As we gardened, I noticed what questions children and their parents had, and how we found the answers together. I wrote the picture book How to Say Hello to A Worm: A First Guide to Outside to inspire more kids and their parents to get their hands dirty.
What is the point of gardening? Why all this digging around in the dirt? Lois Ehlert's Growing Vegetable Soup brings us through the steps and meaning of growing food, right up to the point: the empowering and delicious pay-off moment of making soup and eating it. But check out all her books on the theme. Ehlert's bright colors and shapes make an irresistible read, perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.
A book for the very young child which tells the story of a father and child who plant seeds in the garden. The book shows how the tiny plants grow and are cared for, and finally how the fully-grown vegetables are gathered up and taken into the kitchen to be prepared for soup.
As an American living and cooking in Sicily for almost sixty years, I have soaked up Sicilian cuisine and culture both through research and by osmosis, delighting in discovering how the food I was preparing reflected the island’s position in history and geography, a meeting point for almost all the civilizations of the Mediterranean. My first book, a memoir of my life here entitled On Persephone’s Island, was followed by Pomp and Sustenance. Twenty-five Centuries of Sicilian Food, the first book on Sicilian cuisine to be published in English. Six more books on different aspects of Sicilian food and culture, in English or in Italian, have followed.
I am apt to come back to the kitchen from the garden or the farmers’ market with a large bag of irresistible vegetables that I have no idea what I’m going to do with. More often than not I turn to Viana La Place’s book for a simple and satisfying recipe that uses Italian ingredients with a touch of California thrown in.
Fresh ingredients and ease of preparation characterize the recipes for every course of Italian food, from the antipasta to pasta and risotto, from soups and stews to sandwiches, and from main dishes to salads. With recipes for bruschetta topped with roasted tomatoes and country stews fragrant with saffron and rosemary, to tantalizing puddings, this book covers the full range of Italian cookery.
I’ve always loved nature and the idea of being more self-reliant, so growing some of my own food seemed like an obvious place to start. This led me to permaculture and the treasure box of goodies it provides for each of us to make a positive difference in the world. Almost by accident, I found myself teaching and I loved it so much it became my main vocation. I write to make sense of things for myself and this is how my Design Guide came about. Books are a gift so few of our ancestors had access to. I hope you enjoy my recommendations as much as I have.
I first came across an original Dutch copy of Vera’s book in a charity shop and I bought it despite not understanding the words because it looked so beautiful. In 2019 I finally got the chance to buy an English version and I was not disappointed. Vera is another no-dig, organic grower and this book demonstrates how attractive and abundant such gardens can be. I especially like her sections on her favourite edible flowers and how she groups plants together based on their shape and size but also how they can benefit each other. It’s an all-round beautiful and inspiring book that lives on my easy-access bookshelf!
Learn how to create your own no dig, organic garden with permaculture design and techniques. Vera's 15 years of experience as a no dig gardener provides a vast amount of knowledge on growing fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers. The book is divided into two sections, container gardening and permaculture kitchen gardening. Part One shares knowledge especially useful to urban gardeners and those with little space. Part Two advises on starting and maintaining a garden. Vera's speciality is creating beautiful and delicious polycultures and she offers a range of examples to get you started and the knowledge to experiment. She also…
I’ve loved gardening ever since I was five years old, when I followed my grandmother around her yard as she watered her dinner plate-sized dahlias. As a college student, I rode a bus to school each day and read every gardening book and magazine I could get my hands on. After I graduated with a degree in Journalism, I realized I wanted to write about flowers and veggies and show other people how beautiful and bountiful a garden could be. My first book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, led to a wonderful speaking experience in Orlando at Epcot’s International Flower and Garden Festival, and to contracts for two more books in the spiritual living genre.
This is a guide to saving and growing 160 different vegetables, and you must know how to harvest, save, and store their seeds if you want to plant some of the harder-to-find varieties. Co-author Kent Whealy was one of the founders of Iowa-based Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit organization and seed bank that has a collection of over 20,000 varieties of heirloom flower, vegetable, fruit, berry, grain, and herb seeds. He and his former wife, Diane Ott Whealy, are credited with sparking the heirloom seed movement in the 1970s.
Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book,…
Katherine Pryor is the award-winning author of several picture books about food and gardens. In addition to writing, she has worked to create better food choices at institutions, corporations, and food banks. She gardens with her young twins at their home on an island in northwest Washington.
A young girl wishes her family’s garden looked as pretty as their neighbors’ gardens—bursting with flowers and fragrance rather than the “ugly vegetables” her mom insists on growing. Her mom assures her their garden is worth waiting for, and that these vegetables will be better than flowers. At harvest time, she makes a soup that brings the neighborhood together. Based on events from author/illustrator Grace Lin’s own childhood, The Ugly Vegetables is a story about how food rooted in culture can pass history and identity down through generations, and the importance of growing food that tastes like home.
In this charming story about celebrating differences a Chinese-American girl wishes for a garden of bright flowers instead of one full of bumpy, ugly, vegetables.
The neighbors' gardens look so much prettier and so much more inviting to the young gardener than the garden of "black-purple-green vines, fuzzy wrinkled leaves, prickly stems, and a few little yellow flowers" that she and her mother grow. Nevertheless, mother assures her that "these are better than flowers." Come harvest time, everyone agrees as those ugly Chinese vegetables become the tastiest, most aromatic soup they have ever known. As the neighborhood comes together to…
