Edible Pepper Garden, The (The Edible Garden Series) [Paperback]

Rosalind Creasy (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If any one person can be credited with elevating the status of the vegetable in American gardens, it's Rosalind Creasy." -- Garden Design

About the Author

From sweet peppers to four-alarm spicy ones, here are all the essentials on growing your own private pepper garden, including basic gardening tips and mouth-watering recipes for both the hot pepper lover and the faint of heart.

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Periplus Editions (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9625932968
• ISBN-13: 978-9625932965
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,354,235 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rosalind Creasy is an award-winning garden and food writer, photographer, and landscape designer with a passion for beautiful vegetables and fruits combined with the strong conviction that gardening should be an ecologically positive endeavor. Her first book, the bestselling "The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping," written in 1982, stood as the seminal book on the subject for more than 25 years. It was one of the first American landscaping books to advocate organic methods, encourage recycling, and provide alternatives to resource-wasting gardening techniques. It served to move edibles out of their former sheltered backyard existence into the prominence of the front yard. Since the book's publication, the term "edible landscaping" has become part of horticultural, architectural, and common jargon.

An accomplished photographer, Ros was among the first to photograph the then-unknown heirloom tomatoes and melons, blue potatoes and corn, mesclun salad greens, and edible flowers. She popularized these and other outstanding, but little-known vegetables, in her 1988 book "Cooking From the Garden." Once again her writing broke new ground, introducing the American public to a vast new palette (and palate) of vegetables like candy cane striped 'Chioggia' beets; purple, red, white, and yellow carrots; 'Rosa Bianca' eggplants, baby bok choi, 'Rainbow' chard, chipotle peppers, purple artichokes, and other culinary delights that started out in high-end restaurants and now are seen in farmers markets and home gardens across the country.

Frustrated by America's penchant for lawns, for the last twenty-five years Ros has used her front garden to showcase an ever-changing display of edible ornamentals from A to Z, including 'Pink Pearl' apples, thornless blackberries, purple cauliflower, Kaffir lime, variegated peppermint, and golden zucchini and in themes as diverse as a Magic Circle Herb Garden to The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and a vegetable maze. Her engaging gardens welcome friends and neighbors; children regularly stop by to feed the chickens.

Rosalind is a much sought-after speaker and lecturer, addressing groups as diverse as Master Gardeners, Idaho Landscape Designers, horticultural societies from coast to coast, the Garden Writers Association, college landscaping programs, Celebrity Cruises, Seed Savers Exchange Annual Convention, Monticello, and Colonial Williamsburg. Her magnificent photography--not only of her own unique and enviable gardens, edible harvests, and cuisine, but also of gardens and gardeners she has visited--enriches her talks, enticing and inspiring audiences across the country.

Since 1982, Rosalind has written 18 books on gardening and cooking, including "Cooking from the Garden" and "Rosalind Creasy's Recipes From the Garden," and the children's book"Blue Potatoes, Orange Tomatoes, How to Grow a Rainbow Garden." Her works have garnered some prestigious awards: Edible Landscaping won the Garden Writers Association (GWA) Quill & Trowel Award, as did Earthly Delights. Cooking from the Garden won the GWA Award of Excellence, In 1999 Ros was made a "Fellow" in the Garden Writers Association, an honor bestowed on only 64 people in the organization's 60 years, and in 2009 was inducted into the Garden Writers prestigious Hall of Fame.

Her varied and unique skills are in high demand. For more than a decade, she has been the exclusive photographer for a number of calendars, including the best-selling Seed Savers Calendar. In the past few years, Ros' photography and writing have been featured numerous magazines including Mother Earth News, Gardening How-To, Country Decorating, Sunset magazine, The LA Times, and Southwest Airline's Spirit Magazine. She has been a guest on NPR's "Science Friday with Ira Flatow" and APM's "The Splendid Table" with Lynn Rosetto Casper.

An acclaimed landscape designer, her gardens range beyond California, with design installations at The New York Botanical Garden and Powell Gardens in Kansas City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for the novice...., June 26, 2004

By 

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Edible Pepper Garden, The (The Edible Garden Series) (Paperback)

In THE EDIBLE PEPER GARDEN, Rosalind Creasy demonstrates a variety of ways to grow both sweet and hot peppers (beds along the driveway,in the flower bed next to the street or in containers). I very much appreciated some of her tips about pepper plants such as warning the reader that temperatures can be either too hot or too cool, especially for potted pepper plants, and that PH balanced soil is important for happy peppy plants. Apparently, not only can pepper fruits experience sunscald, the pepper plant roots can literally be cooked on the south side of the pot. And, pepper plants like soil on the sweet side.

I knew very little about hot peppers before 2004 (I'm growing them for my parrots who likes them very much), but I found most of what I need to know in Creasy's book. This spring, I purchased six pepper plants from Seeds of Change, and promptly mixed them up when I repotted them. Creasy includes many great photos and a section with pictures with text descriptions of the main pepper plant categories, so thanks to her I think I've just about sorted them out. This book is not an encyclopedia however, and as a result of my carelessness, I am still trying to determine the identity of two of the plants. Type matters, apparently, as Creasy says some peppers are best harvested green while others should be allowed to ripen. If you are interested in growing peppers in pots or garden beds, this is a great place for the novice to begin.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars One of the better pepper books, August 14, 2003

By 

earl e. chandler (Evasnsville, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edible Pepper Garden, The (The Edible Garden Series) (Paperback)

I have a hugh selection of pepper books, this is one of the best. Great illustrations, good listing of pepper types and sources, and great, yet simple receipes. If you grow peppers , as I do, the section on gardening is straight forward. A hint, always grow larger types in a cage.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Could Have Been A Great Book, August 13, 2005

By 

S. McKenna - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edible Pepper Garden, The (The Edible Garden Series) (Paperback)

The author never really focusses on a paricular audience. She speaks to those who have never grown peppers, but then provides an encyclopedia of varieties which should be grown. Unfortunately, seed and plant sources for many of the varieties are not provided. This is dissapointing, and makes me suspect of the book. Describing a fantastic variety in detail, but not providing a source to obtain it, is wrong. I could write lots of books like that.
Recipes look good.