Joy Larkcom believes passionately that a vegetable garden, whatever its size, can be as beautiful as a conventional garden of flowers and shrubs. In "Creative Vegetable Gardening", she shows how the principles of good design can be applied to a kitchen plot and how to use the vibrant textures, colours, and forms of vegetables, herbs, and fruit to create glorious effects and intriguing patterns without jeopardizing their productivity. Inspirational colour photographs of potagers and kitchen plots capture the essence of the creative approach to vegetable growing. Techniques are described in clear stages and illustrated with full-colour step-by-step artworks, while an A-Z directory includes more than 150 edible plants with key facts on their cultivation, supplemented with ideas on how to grow them to maximum ornamental effect. Beautifully illustrated, intricate plans of five types of potager - formal, informal, small, urban, and winter - add to the wealth of inspirational information."Creative Vegetable Gardening" will capture the imagination and inspire all those who think that growing garden produce is mundane. From creating a full-scale potager to simply adding some new effects with vegetables, this book has something for beginners and experienced gardeners alike.
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"This is a wonderful book for winter reading, filled with ideas for spring and summer sowing and growing." Rosemary Verey The Sunday Times Book Supplement "Joy Larkcom has single-handedly put vegetable gardening back on the map" Jim Buckland Country Living "So filled with exciting and new things that - like the products of the author's kitchen - it goes down in one sitting." David Dunbar The Sunday Times "All aspects of creating an ornamental kitchen garden are covered, from planning to design ideas for attractive boundaries, paths, edges to beds, focal points, and features ... There's a wealth of beautifully photographed detail - textured effects, colourful touches, planting for dramatic effect - to get the creative juices flowing." Andrew Blackford Kitchen Garden "Creative Vegetable Gardening shows that veggies can be grown stylishly in the smallest of places" Jane Powers Irish Times
About the Author
Joy Larkcom has been growing and writing about vegetables for more than thirty years and is considered one of the world's leading experts in the field. Her work has been deeply influenced by travels in Europe, China, Japan, the USA, and Canada, continually searching for new edible plants and cultivation techniques. With the help of her husband, Don Pollard, this has led to the introduction of many exciting salad plants and oriental vegetables. Her eloquent and humorous style of writing has done much to popularize vegetable growing. Over the past ten years she has concentrated on the "potager" concept, making the kitchen plot a beautiful feature in itself. She created four small potagers in the experimental organic market garden she and her husband ran for many years in Suffolk, before moving to Southern Ireland, where a fan-shaped potager is now being made on a windswept slope. Joy is well-known as an author, journalist, and lecturer, and has taken part in many radio and television broadcasts. Her other books include Oriental Vegetables (1991), Salads for Small Gardens (1995), The Organic Salad Garden (2001), Grow Your Own Vegetables (2002), and revisions of the classic The Vegetable Garden Displayed. Joy has won the Garden Writer of the Year award three times and in 1993 was awarded the prestigious Veitch Memorial Medal for services to horticulture. In 2003 she was presented with the Garden Writers' Guild Lifetime Achievement award. She lives in Cork, Ireland.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
70 of 70 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is a sumptuous book with an infectous enthusiasm for all things edible and decorative. It has become a firm favourite of mine. It offers loads of ideas of combinations, both formal and informal, which will work in gardens small and large, and the author conveys confidence in her readers' creative abilities which makes you yearn to have a go. She encourages experimentation and letting plants run to flower and seed, with disdain for the rigidly controlled potager. There is a detailed section at the back including 'planning for succession' for year round produce and beauty, and a 'directory' for detailed information on plant requirements and habits. The paper is fine quality and the wealth of pictures are gorgeous. A really lovely book.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
By emma9466
Format:Paperback
For all of us brought up with parents or grandparents, or older friends who showed us the 'rules' of vegetable gardening, where cabbages were confined to an area out of sight of the neighbours, and onions would under no circumstances be allowed to flower, reading Joy Larkcom's book feels like a rather guilty pleasure. The idea that veg don't have to be grown as single crops in formal rows, and that perhaps a little disorder may be a good thing, feels so wrong and yet so right!
Full of beautiful pictures of vegetables (!), this book qualifies as coffee table material - it's where art and gardening meet - but is also fascinating, inspiring, and written with such unbridled and infectious enthusiasm that it's difficult to decide whether to put the book down and action some of the wonderful ideas, or continue to indulge your creative fantasies, cup of tea in hand!
I haven't rotivated all my lawns yet (though it's tempting), but I have already done some things that would make my poor old grandfather turn in his grave, such as starting to growing runner beans up through the climbing roses (could make picking interesting, we shall see) and sowing brassicas in my flower borders. Ms Larkcom's book makes you feel as if anything is possible and nothing is forbidden.
For anyone starting out with a blank canvas, there are also plenty of planting plans for all kinds of soil and location, and the section on individual vegetables is packed with useful information. Whether you need some creative inspiration, heaps of practical advice or if you just enjoy beautiful pictures, I would strongly recommend this book.
Full of beautiful pictures of vegetables (!), this book qualifies as coffee table material - it's where art and gardening meet - but is also fascinating, inspiring, and written with such unbridled and infectious enthusiasm that it's difficult to decide whether to put the book down and action some of the wonderful ideas, or continue to indulge your creative fantasies, cup of tea in hand!
I haven't rotivated all my lawns yet (though it's tempting), but I have already done some things that would make my poor old grandfather turn in his grave, such as starting to growing runner beans up through the climbing roses (could make picking interesting, we shall see) and sowing brassicas in my flower borders. Ms Larkcom's book makes you feel as if anything is possible and nothing is forbidden.
For anyone starting out with a blank canvas, there are also plenty of planting plans for all kinds of soil and location, and the section on individual vegetables is packed with useful information. Whether you need some creative inspiration, heaps of practical advice or if you just enjoy beautiful pictures, I would strongly recommend this book.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you're a creative person, and have a veg garden, then this book is for you.
It offers great inspiration on making the vegetable garden look good, getting away from the traditional straight lines, what to put with what in terms of textures and colours among other aspects, and how to create dramatic effects in the potager.
Lovely book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
can't put down
A fantastic book for designing a beautiful edible garden or allotment, in my case. Joy includes the largest range of edibles I have ever encountered a must for anyone wanting to... Read more
Published 18 months ago by rachelk
5.0 out of 5 stars
Want my own vegetable plot now
This book was fab for ideas about how to grow vegetables in a veggie plot, in a garden, a mix of both. I like the photos and the narrative is excellent.
Published 23 months ago by HelenaK
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book.
I have had a copy of this book and The Vegetable Garden Displayed for many years and refer them both frequently. Read more
Published on 24 April 2011 by puzzled
3.0 out of 5 stars
not bad, but not brilliant
some good ideas, but not as informative as other books.
the quantity of pictures would make this a great gift for a gardener.
the quantity of pictures would make this a great gift for a gardener.
Published on 20 Nov 2010 by Mr. A. L. Turner
4.0 out of 5 stars
Inspirational and in depth
Combining both laying out your garden and growing vegetables to look beautiful, this book is really inspirational. Read more
Published on 8 Sep 2010 by T. Blundell Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars
book review
excellent book - full of photos, background info, detailed examples of what plants to use in different locations. Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2010 by Potager Pete
5.0 out of 5 stars
A vegetable garden has never been so interesting before
I am thrilled with this book. I ordered it for my daughter as she is a keen grower of her own produce. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2010 by Sookie B
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mum Loved It
I had a flick though and the pictures were lovely, the whole feel of the book was that it was interesting and well laid out - I am not a gardener though, and it didnt hold my... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2010 by Al_ D
5.0 out of 5 stars
Queen of Veg Gardening
This book is an absolute inspiration for creating rather beautiful veg gardens. Packed with great photos and full of advice and tips on growing veg. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2009 by A. Robertson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gardening for Simpletons
Having just created a very small potager;this book was fabulous for showing just what could be done in a small space and how pretty it could look. Read more
Published on 17 April 2009 by Alex B
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