75 Exciting Vegetables For Your Garden

by Jack Staub

Seventy-five eminently beautiful fruits and vegetables are profiled in this charming new book by expert gardener and garden designer Jack Staub. Discover produce you'll likely not see in the local supermarket, including the Asparagus Bean, Green Zebra Tomato, Prescott Fond Blanc Melon, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, True Lemon Cucumber, Turkish Orange Eggplant, and many more. Staub seeks not only to infuse America's backyard gardens with color and variety, but to enlighten and amuse with amiable text, surprising history, scraps of unexpected lore, and tidbits of culinary insight. Unique in content and tone, 75 Extraordinary Vegetables shares the history, evolution, and details about each vegetable, and then provides simple solutions for using them in the kitchen every day. Be they heirloom or hybrid, native or transplant, Staub presents seventy-five really superb vegetables in current culture that are as exciting for their physical beauty as they are for their taste. Jack Staub is widely considered to be one of the country's leading experts on vegetables and vegetable gardening style. He has written for and been featured in many of this country's top gardening and lifestyle publications (House & Garden, House Beautiful, Organic Gardening, Horticulture, Victoria, Country Living Gardener, Kitchen Gardener, and Food & Wine), and his articles and lectures have helped to re-popularize the ancient art of kitchen gardening, and introduce many new vegetable varieties to gardeners across America. His celebrated gardens at Hortulus Farm in Pennsylvania have also been featured in a Time-Warner series on organic gardening. Ellen Sheppard Buchert first learned technical drawing at Keuka College in 1964. She returned to school and finished her Bachelor's degree when she was 56 years old. Each of these illustrations was drawn in pen and ink and colored with watercolor paints on cotton museum board. Her work has been exhibited in Canada and the United States. She lives in Utah.

Genres: Gardening, Food, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Alyssa Gillon]

A very comforting book about vegetables.

[Melanie]

I do not have a green thumb. Over the years of failing to keep even the most hardy houseplants alive, I've figured out why with my husband's help. He is an avid gardener, green thumb extraordinaire. It's not that much of a mystery, really, why his plants thrive and mine dry up and shrink to nothing. It's just that plants and gardens take work, plain and simple. I've just been too lazy because gardening doesn't excite me.

Well, I think I may have found a way to keep myself in the garden! Not long ago I was reading a children's magazine which talked about planting a completely purple garden, and I thought, yeah, that's the ticket! How fun! Well, this book is the grown-up version of that idea. The pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations are gorgeous, and each of the 75 physically beautiful vegetables featured includes a couple pages detailing its interesting history, nutritional content, and growing instructions. What a way to make gardening fun!

This book isn't just for amateurish types like myself looking for external incentives to get out into the garden. My husband, an experienced gardener, learned a few things, too. How do these unique vegetables sound? Artichoke "Violetto de Romagna," Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale, Giant Red Celery, Purple Calabash Tomato, Sunburst Squash, and Zebra Hybrid Eggplant, just to name a few! Definitely a book worth adding to your collection.

[Kathleen]

*I* find it exciting! :)

[Paul Shaloka]

Fun little book

[Amy]

I'm keeping this one by my bed until the last frost. The book itself is very beautifully made.

The author on chard:
"As I've mentioned, chard is virtually carefree to cultivate, being one of those hoped-for vegetable varieties characterized by cheerfulness in any kind of soil, quick growth, yields over a long period if frequently cut, and an extremely pleasing flavor."

[Joshua]

I saw this book years ago in Berkeley but was too cheap to buy it then. A recent trip to Strand had it at the right price. Great stuff! Wonderful illustrations and moderately humorous (but informative) text.

[Kristen]

This book is akin to the best seed catalog you've ever gotten, with two pages plus a beautiful illustration for each vegetable. And I found I had already grown #26 (Elberta Peach Tomato) and #32 (Green Zebra Tomato).

[Alicia Vogl Saenz]

A christmas gift from Jake. I've only read a couple of sections and it is making me want to reestablish my vegetable garden that I have so so so neglected this year.

[Cristin]

Beautiful photos!

[Monique]

Charming book. Beautiful illustrations.