The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical – in short, a victim. When food, in the minds of eaters, is no longer associated with farming and with the land, then the eaters are suffering a kind of cultural amnesia that is misleading and dangerous. -Wendell Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating,” The Art of the Commonplace

With spring fast approaching, I find myself yearning to shed the many layers of heavy winter clothing and also discover that my palate is craving dishes on the lighter side of the food spectrum.

In an effort to get back to my agrarian roots and avoid being a “victim” in  Mr. Berry’s eyes, I have decided to attempt to grow an organic container garden on my back patio. The key word here being “attempt.”

Since my knowledge of organic container gardens is most definitely lacking, I have enlisted the help of a book: Organic Crops in Pots by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell. I happened upon this book in the gardening section of the store, and it turns out to be exactly what I needed. This book is full of helpful and encouraging points on organic gardening for small spaces.

The suggestions for containers range from old olive oil cans to a galvanized metal tub-basically any type of recyclable container that suits your taste. There’s also a chapter on herbs, which I found very helpful and a section on tomatoes, which I’ve not had much luck growing up to this point. Hopefully I will be able to turn that luck around and have a bumper crop of delicious, organic tomatoes from my own back yard this summer!

by Anna

As the garden section “in charge” person on staff, I get so excited when I hear of a new gardening book. By the time it arrives in the store, I have already thought  of how to market it and write about it. Three delightful Southern gardening books arrived this past year, so if someone asked me what were the great Southern gardening books published this past year, which would make  great Christmas  gifts, these are the beauties which I would select:

One Writers Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place by Susan Haltom and Jane Roy Brown would be at the very top of my list. Susan, a personal friend of mine, asked Eudora Welty herself in the mid 1990s if she would allow her garden to be renovated. Miss Welty gave Susan permission to restore the garden just as it was in the 2oth century, so Susan got to work researching the garden, primarily at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Susan’s co-author, Jane Roy Brown, who resides in Massachusetts, researched societal movements and national landscape design trends, which were apparent during the time, and renowned Mississippi landscape photographer Langdon Clay added his beautiful four season photographs of the Welty garden. The book which emerged is spectacular! 

One Writers Garden is divided into four sections: Spring, 1920s; Summer, 1930s; Fall,1940s; and Winter, Postwar and Beyond. The appendices at the back are to be cherished by a Mississippi gardener, for they include lists of what Eudora Welty and her mother Chestina, who actually was the garden founder, grew– from the original plant list, to annuals, to roses,  to a partial list of flowers and plants mentioned in the Pulitzer Prize winning author’s prose.  This is a reference, as well as a gardening book for ALL Mississippians, as well as others, to have on their book shelves, or to take out into their gardens to dream about and be inspired.

First of all, however, this book should be on prominent display on coffee tables and in personal libraries throughout the state, for it is truly a beautiful and classy and  informative gardening guide heralding gardens of past times. Additionally, every reader of this book should visit the newly restored breath- taking Welty Garden on Pinehurst Street across from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi.

Author Susan Haltom, is the garden designer, preservation and maintenance coordinator of the Welty Garden. Since I often work with Susan, and the other “Cereus Weeders”  in the Welty garden, I can personally attest to the fact that Susan has a wealth of information in her gardening head, and she puts it to good use in the Welty garden.

I can’t imagine a better or more lovely garden restoration, especially at the home and garden of one of the world’s most influential and talented writers. Now we Mississippians have something else in the realm of  arts and literature to make us proud:  the Welty Garden! Kudos to Susan how personally made and continues to make this happen.

Garden guru Jacksonian Felder Rushing, known locally, nationally, and internationally has penned a new book this year, to add to his other best selling gardening books, titled Slow Gardening: A No-Stress Philosophy for All Senses and Seasons.

In the introduction, Rushing states, “Life has lots of pressures–why include them in the garden? Doing something slowly means savoring what you are doing. Slow Gardening has its inspirational roots in Slow Food, an international movement founded by Italian activist  Carlo Petrini and others in the 1980s and dedicated to celebrating and defending traditional, seasonal, and sustainably grown local foods, and the people who produce and prepare them.”

The clever, tongue in cheek photos in this motivational gardening book, such as the worm bin, the compost bin, and the whimsical garden art, entertain the reader who is yearning for a different approach to gardening.

This book is for those who don’t mind breaking the landscape rules and for those who want to be free to sit awhile and reflect, free from grass cutting, fertilizing, raking, and weeding. In other words, this innovative gardening book is for the unique, creative, and willing to change gardener who want to “slow down” and “smell the roses”!

Heirloom Gardening in the South: Yesterday’s  Plants for Today’s Gardens by William C. Welch and Greg Grant ranks as my next chosen 2011 gardening book! For those gardeners who appreciate the diverse and interesting heritage of our Southern plants and flowers, this, not only attractive, but highly useful gardening book, fills the bill!

The two dedicated, passionate gardening authors explain their love for pass-along plants, as well as their adoration for old bulbs and cemetery plants, among others. As native Texas gardeners, they are familiar with the challenges and problems surrounding growing flowers and plants in the drought and humidity infused South, so their advice on what to choose, what has worked, and what will work in a Southern garden comes from years and years of experience.

Some of the most enjoyable chapters, including “Rediscovering a Wealth of Southern Heirloom Plants”, “Heirloom Plants of the South” and “How Our Gardens Grew: Creating Your Own Garden Traditions”, not only make any Southern gardener want to rethink his or her choice of plants and flowers but also challenge the gardener to plant and cherish the old, tried-and-true beauties which our Southern ancestors chose.  -Nan

I am really, really excited about the new Southern gardening book which just appeared in my gardening section by surprise a couple of weeks ago. Everyone who has looked at it agrees with me that it is a beautiful book, but also a “keeper” for Southern gardeners. The photos alone are “eye candy” for obsessed gardeners. Just thumbing through it gave me a thrill to see all of the “knock-down/drag out ” plants and flowers. From the close up photos of such individual flowers as the Crinum lily called “Sangria” and the closeup photo of the Mayhaw blossoms, to the larger photos of such glorious trees as the Changsha tangerine growing in Texas, to the Satsuma tree also in Texas, well, my heart leaped for joy.

Heirloom Gardening in the South is divided into these sections: “Exploring Our Gardening Heritage”, “Rediscovering a Wealth of Southern Heirloom Plants”, “The Right Plant in the Right Place”, “Heirloom Plants of the South”, and “How Our Gardens Grew: Creating Your Own Garden Traditions”. Within each of these sections are logical divisions, such as in “Exploring Our Gardening Heritage”, the reader/gardener will find Native American influence, Spanish influence, French influence, African influence, English influence, German influence, Italian influence,and Asian influence.  -Nan

As an avid gardener, I am always interested in the history of gardening, whether it be the immediate past history of my friends’ gardens, or the history of some of the first gardens of America.

As a teenager, I followed my mother around Williamsburg, Virginia, studying the formal English based gardens of the Virginia planters. She later used that research to plan her own formal Williamsburg garden with its four boxwood points focusing on a marble sundial, which I have been fortunate to inherit for my own cottage style garden.

In Founding Gardeners author Andrea Wulf explores the development and history of  George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, John Adams’ Peacefield (see below), and James Madison’s Montpelier. In the appendix, the reader can explore the actual maps of these great estates and locate the placement of all plants, trees, flowers, and vegetables.

Some of the interesting chapter titles, such as “Gardens, peculiarly worth the attention of  an American,” “A Nursery of American Statesmen,” “The Constitutional Convention in 1787 and a Garden Visit” as well as  “Political Plants Grow in the Shade,” get the reader’s attention immediately.

Wulf notes, “For the founding fathers, gardening, agriculture, and botany were elemental passions, as deeply ingrained in their characters as their belief in liberty for the nation they were creating.”

Founding Gardeners is a beautiful, as well as informative book off the beaten track. For gardeners and history lovers, this is a noteworthy book to have on a reference shelf in a home library.

Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf (Random House, 2011).

-Nan