Books: Two for Dedicated Gardeners

Seems like everyone this year is into veg gardening because of covid, so this is just the book you need. In Kitchen Garden Revival: A modern guide to creating a stylish small-scale, low-maintenance edible garden (Cool Springs Press, 2020), author Nicole Johnsey Burke takes you through all the steps to create an artful, sophisticated vegetable garden.

Burke, who you can find on the web at Gardenary, lets you know right off that a veg garden is not a part of your garden that has to be ugly.  Rather, it can be a small, beautifully designed corner, a large space farther out from the house -- you name it.  Aside from guiding you through the design process, she tells you how to build a healthful garden, what to grow and how, along with all the things you can make from your harvest.  Simply a terrific book for anyone who wants to try their hand at growing the things you love.

This book takes a different approach, but yes, you can grow vegetables in your front yard, too, if you like.  Author Tara Nolan, in Gardening Your Front Yard: Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces - Includes Vegetable Gardening, Pollinator Plants, Rain Gardens, and More! (Cool Springs Press, 2020), makes front yards the focus for almost anything you want to do in the garden. You can make it a space for community socializing and entertaining; grow vegetables; add spectacular plants for four-season interest; bring in the wildlife; and much more.

I particularly liked the chapter on front-yard embellishments: a sedum carpet for the driveway area; a wrought iron fence that provides transparency; permeable pavers; a mowing border; hedges, pathways, pergolas and arbors. 

So ... get rid of that boring lawn, draw inspiration from this book, and turn your front yard into a show-stopping masterpiece. Find more ideas at Nolan's website, Savvy Gardening.