By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
Working to raise the bar for the best-selling Western Garden Book, Sunset’s editors decided last year to create a Western Garden Book of Edibles, which has just been released. Since I was on the team that produced it, I’ll leave it for others to write the reviews—I’ll just tell you what we did to make it more beautiful and useful than any version of the Western Garden Book that’s gone before.
•The look For the first time in any Western Garden Book, we've included large color photos for every entry. Once you see them, you'll probably quit thinking in terms of edibles and ornamentals. These edibles are both, and beautifully so.
•Scope We expanded, updated, and standardized all the entries. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to grow lemongrass, breadfruit, edamame, or romanesco, you’ll find it here. Since this 304-page book includes only edibles, we were able to give more room to each, covering dozens of new varieties and offering new ways (mostly organic) to deal with old and new pests. In all, the book covers more than 190 categories of edible berries, fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, flowers, and tropicals—and that isn't counting the individual varieties listed in text and charts.
•Depth We tapped into recent research about growing plants out of zone (apples in Riverside, olives in the Northwest, and artichokes in Utah, for example). Every entry also covers planting, spacing, yields, and training. We give you the details about container growing when it's a good option, and explain how and when to harvest. Growing tricks are also listed: how to blanch celery, for example—and why you might not want to.
•Garden design Because nothing is as inviting (and mouth-watering) as a well-fashioned food garden, the book devotes one of my favorite chapters to design. I think the chapter works so well because it’s been so thoroughly vetted by Sunset's magazine editors and book editor Tom Wilhite. A landscape designer (Green Man Garden Design) when he isn’t working on book projects, Wilhite worked with our magazine editors to show how to lay out flat gardens, raised bed gardens, container gardens, and the paths that define them. The chapter also covers space-saving arbors, trellises, and plant choices.
•Practical details In principle, food gardening is pretty straightforward and truly rewarding. In practice, the details can leave you wondering. How do you deal with hungry deer or late frost? What’s the most efficient way to water? How do you amend soil, apply fertilizer, and prune fruit trees? When do you do these things? And what is my Sunset climate zone, anyway? The book’s opening and closing chapters clear up all these things, so you won’t be stuck for answers when you need them.
