Overview

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, and an A-Z directory includes more than 150 edible plants. Beautifully illustrated, intricate plans of five types of potager formal, informal, small, urban, and winter add to the wealth of inspirational information. From creating a full-scale potager to simply adding some new effects with vegetables, Creative Vegetable Gardening has something for beginners and experienced gardeners alike.

Full Product Details

Author:   Joy Larkcom
Publisher:   Octopus Publishing Group
Imprint:   Mitchell Beazley
Dimensions:   Width: 25.50cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 26.10cm
Weight:   0.975kg
ISBN:  

9781845333904

ISBN 10:   184533390
Pages:   208
Publication Date:   15 February 2008
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Out of Print
Availability:   In Print  
Limited stock is available. It will be ordered for you and shipped pending supplier's limited stock.

Table of Contents

1 THE MAGIC IN VEGETABLE GARDENING, Starting at home, What is a potager? The threads of inspiration, Contemporary approaches, The home of the edible landscape, Ecstasy or anguish?; 2 ELEMENTS OF DESIGN, Getting started - The site; The style; Drawing up the plan, Plan of a formal potager, Plan of an informal potager, Plan of a small, urban potager, Plan of a low-maintenance potager, Plan of a winter potager, Patterns and bed shapes - Squares, Diamonds and triangles, Circles, Unconventional patterns, Minimal patterns, Boundaries - Man-made, Hedges, Instant boundaries, Paths - Soft paths, Mulched paths, Hard surfaces, Edges - Hard edges, Dwarf hedges, Focal points and features - Arches, Seats and arbours, Standard trees, Topiary, Supports, Containers; 3 DRAMATIC EFFECTS Planting for effect, Architectural and dramatic plants, Drama from seedheads and flowering vegetables, Climbers - Culinary climbers, Mixing climbing flowers and shrubs with vegetables, Living edges - Frivolous edges, Useful edges Ground cover - Types of ground-cover plants, Special effects with ground cover Textured effects - Plants with form and texture Colourful touches - Vegetables and herbs, Flowering edibles and edible flowers, Intermingling annuals, Mixing bulbs with edibles, Vegetables in the flower beds, Intercropping - The patterns, Practicalities, Options for intercropping, Contrasting colours, Contrasting heights, Contrasting textures, Seedling patches - Suitable crops, Sowing and growing, Effects with cca seedlings; 4 FRUIT AS A DECORATIVE FEATURE Using fruit creatively - Shapely and colourful trees, Fruit in containers, Integrating fruit into the garden, Selecting fruit, Fruit as a framework - Trained fruit on boundaries, Trained fruit forms, Climbers and trailers on the boundary, Using Fruit for ornamental highlights - Arches, Tunnels and walkways, Columnar effects; 5 POTAGER MANAGEMENT Soil fertility - Green manuring, Mulching, Watering Raising good quality plants - Direct sowing, Sowing in seedbeds, Raising plants 'indoors', Keeping order, Controlling pests and diseases, Plant protection, Forcing pots, Planning for succession, 6 A-Z DIRECTORY Table of common and botanical names, Brassicas, Salad and leafy vegetables, Roots, bulbs, tubers and swollen stems, Podded vegetables, Fruiting and seeding vegetables, Gourds and squashes, Perennials, Herbs, Edible flowers, Glossary, Seasons, Further reading, Suppliers, Index, Acknowledgements, Photo acknowledgements.

Reviews

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

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

Author Information

Joy Larkcom has been growing and writing about vegetables for more than 30 years and is 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, which have led to the introduction of many exciting salad plants and oriental vegetables. Over the past ten years she has concentrated on the potager concept, making the kitchen plot a beautiful feature in itself. Joy is well-known as an author, journalist, and lecturer, and has taken part in many radio and television broadcasts.

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