Customer Reviews

Gardens of Use & Delight: Uniting the Practical and Beautiful in an Integrated Landscape

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It would be hard to overpraise this exceptional book. Written by two people who are master practitioners of our grandparents' ways of living as well as master gardeners, this book is a gem!
It is at once a book on gardening (flowers, herbs, fruits & vegetables) and independent living, a book of recipes and remedies, and an arresting narrative of thirty years of work creating a self-sufficient life (and all manner of wonderful gardens) on the bare bones of an old, abandoned farm on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. It is also a book of considerable visual beauty, being generously illustrated in vibrant watercolors by Champlain Valley artist Elayne Sears.
I found Gardens of Use and Delight not only meaningful and enjoyable reading, but also a very useful reference for many aspects of flower, herb, fruit and vegetable gardening, and for all manner of things "homemade." The recipes in the chapters, "The Kitchen Garden," "The Contained Garden," and "An Old-Fashioned Fruit Garden" are mouth-watering gems often rescued from the cookbooks of yesteryear (the Herb Salt and Apple Ginger recipes to name two favorites!) And the wisdom and humanity distilled from the lives of these two people who decided to truly live their beliefs is instructive and inspiring.
Perhaps more importantly, though, the book is a reminder of the elements of a rich and healthy life that have been forgotten, if not lost, in these times.
I recommend it highly!

This is a fascinating book full of practical information on growing and using what you grow. The illustrations are beautiful. I'm very happy with this book.

Jigs Gardner and his wife Jo Ann went off to farm and teach troubled boys in northern Vermont. Next they moved with their four small children to an abandoned farm on Cape Breton Island and lived there for thirty years. With no motor vehicle, they plowed and moved the hay wagon with draft horses. On the thin, poor soil they raised livestock for meat, they grew vegetables and herbs, and everywhere they grew flowers. Their life on Cape Breton is the thread running through this splendid book; but, subtitled, Uniting the Practical and Beautiful in an Integrated Landscape, it is mostly a thoughtful guide to productive farming while living in harmony with one's natural surroundings.

Simply reading the table of contents is a treat:
Part One: The Whole, Chapter One - The Farm Today, Chapter Two - The Evolving Landscape
Part Two: The Gardens
Part Three: The Integrated Landscape - Practice & Philosophy

The Gardners are intelligent, well educated, write superbly and, for thirty years supported their family with no institutions to mediate between them and the wolf at the door - remarkable bona fides. For decades they have contributed to small farming journals and literary magazines around the United States. Jo Ann began growing herbs and selling them at Nova Scotia fairs. As her expertise grew, she published Living with Herbs and other well-written and useful books still in print.

And Gardens..., besides a pleasure to read, is filled with useful information for and guides about growing. The lovely illustrations by Elayne Sears are far better suited to this book than photographs would be, just as my best bird field guides use drawings, not photos.