Customer Reviews

The Edible Herb Garden (Edible Garden Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a beginner to herb gardening, this book is exactly what I needed to get me started, and motivated! It is a valuable reference book as it provides the essentials to a successful garden in a format that is consistent and easy to read. It includes a complete encyclopedia of culinary herbs with beautifully detailed photos that are good enough to eat! The photos make it easy for the beginner to learn the names of herbs and to easily identify all varieties. This book also contains sections on Planting and Maintenance, and Pest and Disease Control. It's an all-in-one tool. I highly recommend the entire Edible Garden series.

What's not to like about Rosalind Creasy's garden books? Creasy is an advocate of eating your garden. For years, I went back and forth - Do I grow flowers? Do I grow vegetables? Creasy says you can grow both and she shows you how. Her books are not filled with pages and pages of tedious text on preparing soil, planting, watering weeding harvesting. Instead, she includes several photos of her hired hands doing all that tiresome stuff while she takes pages of photos of plants (a small "encyclopedia") and receipes (a small cook book).

I was inspired by Creasy to try peppers in pots this past summer, and the Goddess must have smiled because all the plants behaved well and furnished a bumper crop of hot peppers for my pepper-loving Senegal parrot. So, for the first time ever - inspired by Creasy - I tried lavender in a clay pot and it worked well. Usually, my lavender plants mold from underneath because although the summers in the Washington DC area are usually hot, they are not dry like those in Provence where lavender excells. Clay pots are a good idea because the lavender plant sits above the ground away from the damp and any moisture falling from a watering can or the sky wicks away quickly. I have grown other herbs in pots - parsley, scented geraniums, basil, but never tried lavender until this year. I also grew several kinds of mint plants in both clay pots and the kind with a water well underneath, which is the only way to grow them as they are so invasive.

I love Creasy's EDIBLE HERB GARDEN because in my estimation a picture is worth a thousand words, and as an experienced gardener, I don't need a lot of instruction. Creasy includes plenty of pictures that are useful to me because they give me design ideas. I can look at a garden photo, recognize plants and judge how much work is involved in realizing the scene depicted. Creasy doesn't really advise you concerning the amount of work involved to maintain a scene. She also grown herbs in a California climate.

I've used other sources to help me learn how to grow herbs (Rodale in particular), and I've used Creasy's book to discover new and beautiful ideas for displaying culinary herbs in the perennial garden, as bedding plants or in pots.

Creasy offers nifty vinegar, oil, and tea recipes using culinary herbs as well as items such as barbecued veggies on Rosemary skewers. Collect her series, but be warned, you will need a good "how to" book or your own personal gardener to achieve her results.

There are many books available to spend time on all the varying uses for herbs (gardens, medicine, etc.) and nothing wrong with that. But for those of us who are into herbs for the sole purpose of the culinary zest they so wonderfully provide, this is significant resource in a small, well done fashion.

Color photos, herb by herb info, as well as recipes and aids with sources, insect and disease problems, this is valuable aid to us herb growers for the table.

From planning to preparing to planting to cultivating to problem cures to harvesting to recipe utilization, this is solid 105 pages of herb wisdom.

I'm a master gardener, and I volunteer for the Speakers' Bureau of my local Master Gardeners' Association. Lately we've been getting more requests for talks on edible gardening. Herb gardening is a logical first step in that direction, because herbs are the least demanding of the edible crops and because most herbs are attractive enough to integrate into an existing ornamental garden.

In researching a recent talk on herb gardening, I came across Creasy's book at the library. It's engagingly written and quite complete. It includes clear, step-by-step instructions for planning and installing an herb garden; an encyclopedia of herbs with a photo and cultural information for each one; a collection of delicious recipes, from simple to sophisticated; and lists of additional resources.

I ended up taking the book with me to my talk and recommending it to the audience. I also bought a gift copy for one of my daughters to use in planning her new patio garden. And as I write this, I'm thinking I really must buy another copy for myself!

I didn't know much about growing herbs before purchasing this book, but I wanted to learn to use more herbs in my cooking. I use this book primarily as a reference when I have a question about when to plant, when to prune, etc. I haven't tried any recipes and I can only hope that one day I'll plant some of the beautiful herb gardens pictured in this colorful book.

This is not an indepth book, but a good overview of how to grow, how to prepare and special notes on different herbs as well as arrangement of them in a garden that is beautiful as well as functional. The use of focal points truly makes it a decorative showpiece that many wouldn't think is feeding you! Once getting through the arranging and how to grow sections there's 'recipes' for herbal blends, dried herbs, herbal vinegars, herb butter, herbed cream, liquors as well as recipes for the table - some simple some easily elegant for those who grow their own food at home. While it's fair to note this is an overview - the photos are inspiring and the information concise. It's sufficient to order and get moving on doing an herb garden. The photos bely the many hours and effort to grow beautiful garden areas but the author writes from having *done* this and shows photos from her own garden areas. An explosion of color for the eye as well as treats in the home. Take note and don't skim on things like "I included the showy but decidedly not edible, tall graceful foxgloves and blue star creeper in between the boards" (from a caption of one of the photos). Very nice book - I've bought two in this series and will continue to add others if they deliver as this does.