Getting Fresh

Having just paid a fairly honking-big library fee, it really hits home: For not much more money, I could have bought or swapped for copies of the same titles, and they’d be mine to keep — books on gardening and sustainable living that I’m sure I’d use again and again, year in and year out. Not only are there some juicy new gardening books for the growing number of practical, small-space gardeners, but there’s also a vast quantity of out-of-print titles that are being rediscovered and newly appreciated.

This past weekend, I chose about 30 titles, both new and out-of-print, to add to the Small Green Garden Bookshelf on Powell’s.com. Follow that link, and you’ll see the whole lineup: container gardening resources, small-space and urban garden design guides, and even some DIY manuals and cookbooks written with the home vegetable gardener in mind.

I try to pick them with a discriminating eye and always appreciate your feedback, so if there’s something in particular you’d like to see up on the shelf, or reviewed right here, shoot me an email.

Search the Web for “free garden design plans,” and you’re likely to get a mass of flower garden designs that will bore the small-space vegetable gardener straight out of her gourd. To find real inspiration, I’ve turned to the blogosphere — and to Europe, actually. In France, growing gorgeous edible gardens is a much more popular pursuit, thanks to the tradition of the potager, or “kitchen garden,” and to the monasteries that originally made vegetable and herb gardening an art form.

The kitchen garden of Chateau de Villandry:  The potager of potagers! Their website has a plethora of panoramic photos — just enough to make me wish that I were actually there to see what’s what. But I guess the entire point is to appreciate it for the form and colors. Go do that.

The gardens of Prieuré d’Orsan: More gorgeous potager photos, and there might just be a lot of information there for you, if you read French better than I do.

“Potager Progress” on the Art of Gardening blog: A great post on adapting the potager style for a cramped side-yard.

Focal Points in a Formal Setting: Some first-hand advice for designing a compact, attractive vegetable garden similar to a potager.

Home Vegetable Gardening, Parts I & II: Two video lectures from botanist, professor, and avid vegetable grower Robert Norris, with excellent general tips and slide shows. (Particularly good if you grow in California.)

But if you’re aching for detailed schemata — you know, the attractively abstracted view-from-above, usually on graph paper — or you just want someone to tell you exactly what to plant, and where, then look to classic books like Barbara Damrosch’s Garden Primer, or John Jeavon’s How to Grow More Vegetables than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine (actually, imagine about as much land space as the full title takes up). You can also find vegetable garden plans from Better Homes & Gardens right now. (Register with them for free to access PDF’s.) Don’t waste time with their “small space vegetable garden,” but check out the Heritage Vegetable, Asian-Inspired Vegetable, and Eye-Catching Kitchen Garden designs, which are even better suited to maximizing limited space.

I’ll reiterate the “free” part, because that’s what grabbed my attention. What’s free: A nice demo version of GardenCAD — design software meant for professional landscape designers, but why should they have all the fun? You can customize the built-in plant symbols and use the drawing tools to plan your next container vegetable garden. The demo version will allow you to save your work upon closing, and you can print plans, too.

Right after I downloaded the demo, I started using it to mock up my next balcony garden. If you (like me) have limited/no experience using CAD programs, it takes some getting used to. Try the tutorial, or at least check out the GardenCAD quick-start video on YouTube (!).

Very fun (at least when you’re trapped indoors by arctic weather). In the next couple weeks I’ll be uploading some of the small-space garden plans I’ve created.

Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) is an excellent choice for small-space gardeners who want to make a limited area really work for them: it’s edible, attractive, grows well vertically and in containers, and will rid your garden of certain pests. It is an irrepressible, flowering vine — annual in most climes, but watch it in warmer pockets of the U.S., because it can self-sow and make itself difficult — with distinctively saucer-shaped foliage and summertime blossoms that are typically red, orange, or yellow.

Nasturtium will repel whiteflies, squash bugs, and striped pumpkin beetles, so it’s an excellent companion plant for (you guessed it) squash and pumpkins, in addition to radishes and cabbages. And, if you’d like to single-handedly thin the neighborhood aphid population, then nasturtium is for you: It attracts aphids, enticing them away from other plants in the garden, and gathering them in one spot for you to deal with them as you see fit (read: to neutralize them!).

Growing a healthy nasturtium requires no more than average soil and a sunny spot. In shade, the vine will grow, but you won’t get as many flowers from it.

Its leaves, flowers, and seeds are edible, with a peppery zing.  Here are a few serving suggestions to ignite your culinary imagination:

Young Leaves and Flowers
Use as salad greens and garnishes, or in sandwiches. Add minced fresh flowers to butter.

Seeds
Eat as is, or pickle them: Wash the seeds, boil up some cider vinegar, add enough to the seeds to completely cover them, and keep stored in a sealed jar.

Flower buds
Pickle as you would the seeds.

References:

• The Container Kitchen Garden, A. Atha
• Great Garden Shortcuts, J. Benjamin
• Horticulture Gardener’s Desk Reference, A. Halpin
• The Rodale Herb Book

If you’re going for the kind of urban oasis that’s untamed and colorful, than tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is for you. It’s a rangy herb, growing over two feet tall with fern-like foliage and big heads of button-like, bright yellow flowers that bloom for most of the summer.

Tansy, however, is a potent plant whose traditional medicinal and culinary uses have been overshadowed by its dangers; it contains substances that can cause miscarriage or birth defects, and can accumulate to toxic levels if ingested regularly. Don’t use it in the kitchen unless you’re consulting with an herbalist, don’t let your animals eat it, and use gloves if you find it irritates your skin.

Its chemistry is also a powerful insect repellent, though, so it might be just what you need to deter ants, flying insects, and beetles. To corral its invasive roots and reap its benefits, plant tansy in pots near roses, blackberries, raspberries, peppers, potatoes, and squash. It will tolerate partial shade and likes a dry soil (read: can take some neglect). Think about planting it at the outer edge of your container garden to create a useful and visually interesting border…and create the perfect setting for a roof-top picnic.

References

• The Container Kitchen Garden, A. Atha
• Horticulture Gardener’s Desk Reference, A. Halpin
• The Rodale Herb Book