Kitchen Garden Planner (Country Home)

Rating:
Summary: Potager Planning!
Review: The concept of a potager, or kitchen garden appeals to me greatly. I very much want my garden to be ornamental as well as edible. Somewhat similar to the idea of "edible landscaping", potagers often intermingle vegetables, herbs, and flowers, sometimes planting them in geometric shapes. Sort of a more formal, yet informal garden. Colorful. Interesting. Not your garden-variety garden. I've been looking for online articles and for books on potagers, which seem to be popular in England, but hard to find in the United States. I haven't been able to find much information on them.

Country Home's Kitchen Garden Planner by Darrell Trout is just what I was looking for. It takes the reader through mini-tours of thirteen different American potagers, with text, photographs, and a plan (illustrated map) for each garden. A few of the individual plant varieties are somewhat unusual, but they described and keyed to commercial sources. The one defect that I found was that a couple of the sources seem to be omitted from the index, or perhaps there was a typo, a minor flaw in an otherwise exciting book. The last chapter talks about basic gardening in general. I only wish there was more on potagers in the Midwest where I live. Then again, where I live, there is wheat as far as the eye can see and not much else.

I really like this book. I wanted ideas for designing a potager and this book has given me lots of ideas. It is strong on the visuals, which I wanted, but also has informative text. Plus, I can just copy or modify one of the garden designs in the book to suit my needs, personal preferences, and growing zone until my own style evolves.