Delia's Kitchen Garden: A Beginner's Guide to Growing and Cooking Fruit and Vegetables

For readers who like to dream about gardening books the way others fantasize about exotic vacations, it's hard to beat this inspiring volume by the British duo of Search and Smith-but only those with a fair-sized patch of land will be able to put most of its suggestions to use. The book is evidently the offshoot of another, larger project: bestselling cookbook author Smith's decision to build a beautiful kitchen garden where she could grow delicious fruit, vegetables and salads. Clearly, this first project was a success. The book's many photos show a gorgeous, old-fashioned, walled country garden with brick walkways, neat wooden planters and thriving produce. This latter was cultivated by Smith's friend, BBC television gardener Search (Gardening from Scratch, etc.), who has also written most this book's text. For those with a little gardening experience, Search provides a cheery, useful blueprint for setting up your own kitchen plot. She covers everything from making compost and rotating crops to putting up a runner-bean framework and cleaning the greenhouse. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into monthly chapters; each begins with a useful list of what is to be done in the coming weeks (e.g., for July, harvest blueberries, pick flowers, plant cauliflower, sow radishes), followed by detailed instructions on how to complete the tasks. A paired chapter gives Smith's recipes for the produce harvested that month (i.e., Blueberry and Pecan American Muffins). All of this is impressively condensed and organized, but some may wish that the book's final section-on setting up kitchen patio gardens and ""square foot"" gardens-were more than just six pages long. Then again, maybe Smith will decide to build a city kitchen garden next. 250 color photos.