Culinary Gardens: From Design to Palate [Hardcover]

Susan McClure (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

McClure's (The Herb Gardener, Garden Way, 1995) book on vegetable gardening emphasizes garden design and recipes more than actual vegetable growing. Popularizing the concepts of Rosemary Verey by using vegetables to please the eye as well as the taste buds, McClure provides designs for 11 different vegetable gardens, from country casual to a formal Elizabethan knot garden. Along with a detailed garden plan, she lists specific varieties of recommended vegetables, fruits, herbs, or flowers and finishes off each chapter with related recipes. Growing guidelines for each plant are contained in the chapter "Encyclopedia of Crops." McClure's designs elevate vegetable gardening from the traditional backyard plot to front-garden eye catchers, but libraries will have to judge whether local interest justifies the price.?Molly Newling, Piscataway
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Susan McClure, now deceased, was a trained horticulturist with eight garden books to her credit.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing; First Edition edition (August 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555913113
• ISBN-13: 978-1555913113
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,232,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Culinary Gardens, May 30, 2008

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Rubythorne "ruby" (Somewhere ...) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Culinary Gardens: From Design to Palate (Hardcover)

This book is a great idea, but lacks the particulars needed to actually do the gardens it outlines. Specific dimensions are missing in the individual designs. The knot garden for example gives an overall dimension ... but you just sort of have to guess how big the circles and paths are and how large the corner beds are.

There's no real indication how many plants to use, so developing a shopping list and thus a cost estimate is a nothing but a guess.

Plant locations on the design are indicated by varying shades of often similar colors. One design for example has 7 shades of greens. It's impossible to tell which green is which plant in the design.

The majority of the book is devoted to descriptions of the various plants and rambling history or other material on the different garden types. There are few tips on how to actually construct the design. Like how do you lay out a perfect circle of plants? When should you do the shaping and pruning, the harvesting, and when should the plants go in the ground for the best look of the particular garden? Most of the plant descriptions do not include light requirements or other such practical considerations. In short, a good idea, very poorly executed. Advanced and intermediate gardeners won't really need a book like this, and beginners will just be frustrated.

The best part of the book are the recipes, which salvages an otherwise mediocre book, and earns it three stars instead of one.