The Art of the Kitchen Garden (ISBN 1561581801)

This Book is Complete Fantasyland:
For a couple minutes you may marvel at this book, and then you'll quickly realize it's full of repetition of a theme -- same style, same border plants, sameness throughout. Worse than that, however, is the fact that if you even bothered to lay one of these out it would look just right for only a week or so before you wanted to pick something but decided against it so as not to throw off the symmetry, or worse one part of your composition died away and made the rest useless. Gardening is hard enough work without resorting to this. I have a pretty kitchen garden thanks to borders of allyssum and gravel paths, but it's not as insane as this where I would constantly be dismayed it was dying or wanted to pick something (heaven forbid). There are many books on pretty kitchen gardens. This is a book for people who want to achieve something surreal that will ultimately make them miserable very shortly thereafter. Stop by my house. I'll give you this book for free. Worthless. Sameness. Boring. Useless.

Function Forsaken by Fiddly Form?:
The Gertleys' book concentrates on the design styles for a kitchen garden, based on the parterre de broderie, which achieved its ultimate glory at Versailles. They use a series of simple geometric shapes to achieve their parterre gardens as their designs become increasingly complex. They derive design inspiration from Celtic knots, Japanese crests, and quilt patterns. Their designs are inspirational to view however, their gardens are very demanding of their creators. The designs might raise or fall on the placement of a radish and are not especially functional. I am a cook first, gardener second, and artist last when it comes to potagers. Their methodology requires far more nitty-gritty planning than suits my preferred approach. It often appears at counter purposes to a kitchen garden that is meant to supply the table since it is so meticulously groomed and cared for and harvested with such additional planning in order not to destroy the patterns made by the vegetables. The book's approach is much like Charlie Tuna asking; "Do you want tunas with good taste? Or, do you want tuna dat tastes good?" I admire the design talent and illustrations if not the philosophy.

Great Book!:
This book is wonderful! I wanted to make our garden area look more landscaped and put together rather than having the plants look sloppy. This book gives wonderful pictures and ideas for making it work. It also gives descriptions of types of plants to use as well as edible flowers. It works for the mini garden as well as the large garden areas. I recommend this book to all vegetable gardeners who want more than a tomato plant here or there!

kitchen garden:
This book is lovely and inspirational and full of good ideas. I do not have time for such an elaborate garden but I have planted mine using many of their ideas an it is beautiful and functional.

A Worthwhile Read!:
Excellent illustrations (pictures and charts) to help define a kitchen garden. Could be more practical for small home gardens.