Garden Wisdom: Lessons Learned from 60 Years of Gardening

Rural historian Apps (Barns of Wisconsin) continues his chronicling of rural life with a folksy memoir of his six decades of vegetable gardening. The material is arranged to follow the growing season and includes some growing tips and advice on preserving and cooking the garden’s bounty, but it is not a methodical how-to guide for the novice. For him, the garden is a place of “mystery, awe, anticipation, patience, surprise, disappointment, and elation.” The terrain will be familiar to readers of gardening memoirs, but those who have also grown to love the slow rhythms and quiet satisfactions of growing one’s own food will enjoy the company of his recollections. The collection is filled with humorous anecdotes and quiet observations of the cycle of life in the humble vegetable patch—plus an unexpected recipe for sorghum cookies. The pleasures he discovers in the garden come through on each page. 65 color and b&w photos and illus. (Feb.)