The Gardener's Table
By R. Merrill and J Ortiz
published in 2000
After reading about a 100 different gardening books it is
getting difficult to find much new and interesting. The one
area that still isn't covered to my satisfaction is
ecological-gardening and this book tries to fill the gap.
In the forward Rosalind Creasy says: "I heartily agree with
the book's premise: that an environmentally friendly garden
and delicious health-enriching foods are essential
ingredients of the good life.
This statement got my interest and motivated a dive into the
first chapter.
The first section talks about garden layout and promotes
raised beds over rows. From there they proceed into
composting, IPM, and lots of standard organic techniques.
For me this is old news. I want to move beyond raised beds,
IPM, and soil testing. The drip water systems and other
techniques seem to fit the authors California location and
most of the ideas were similar to Joavan's systems of
growing.
To be fair this book is mainstream organic gardening and fits
most gardeners. It just doesn't fit my interests of mixing
crops and perennials, planting in mounds and occasionally in
depressions, substituting plant selection and neglect for
most IPM techniques.
One pleasant surprise was the section on onions. For once a
book suggested that shallots and potato type onions are a
better choice for home gardeners.
The part that made the book worthwhile was all the cooking
information presented with charts and lists of which variety
of vegetable fits in the various recipes. This was new to
me.
Recommendation: Worth a trip to the library. If they don't
have it then suggest they upgrade and toss out some of the
old gardening books by ortho.
----
Does anyone have a successful relation between their garden and
a terrier? Possibly a Jack Russel Terrier? This is my proposed
solution to our squirrel and critter invasion.
jeff (enjoying a summer of harvesting and cooking. Fall
crops are now sprouting)
