The Art of French Vegetable Gardening

In America and England, they are known as kitchen gardens. In France they are called potagers. But the difference lies in more than a name, Gertrude Stein notwithstanding. It's a matter of style, of transforming a utilitarian plot into a thing of beauty that will please the eye as well as fill the table. Jones, an expatriate Canadian who has lived and gardened in the south of France for 20 years, offers a charming glimpse into gardens both humble and grand in which common vegetables rub shoulders with flowers, fruit trees and herbs. Following the history of the potager from the self-sufficient medieval cloisters to today's seemingly haphazard melange, she details garden design and such structures as walls and fences and the various plants that bring it all to life. Appendixes note French gardens that welcome visitors and offer 80 recipes for classic French home-cooked dishes and seed sources for the American gardener. The text is embellished with 175 handsome color photographs of gardens and their fruits. BOMC selection. (Sept.)