Cover Image: Kitchen Garden Revival

Kitchen Garden Revival

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Member Reviews

I have always wanted to start a personal garden and this book is the perfect place to begin! Burke walks the reader step by step through planning your kitchen garden, caring for your garden, and enjoying your garden. In the day and age of a more conscious consumer and the social environmentalist, kitchen gardens are all the rage! Make sure to take a look at this beautiful and easy to follow guide to the modern kitchen garden.

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When I was a little girl my grandfather grew vegetables and and I could swear that his tomatoes (my favorite) tasted better than any tomatoes we ever got from a grocer. This "homegrown tastes better" attitude continued in my own children after we had a successful garden in our former state.

That garden cost next to nothing. It was a gorgeous, thriving garden but it certainly wasn't social media perfect like these curated examples are.

This book has potential, it does have useful information and beautiful photographs but it just sat the wrong way with me. This is rich people gardening and all gardening needs some good soil, seeds, and a willingness to get your hands dirty. You can do it in your yard, on your fire escape, on your apartment balcony, etc., etc. It doesn't have to be flawless.
Please repeat after me - I really don't need x-amount of money to have the ideal garden for my needs. It can be done for far less with the same results - having a garden that you grew yourself to help sustain your family.

My thanks to Nicole Johnson Burke, Quarto Publishing Group - Cool Springs Press, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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Kitchen Garden Revival is a new tutorial and resource guide for gardeners written by Nicole Johnsey Burke. Due out 21st April 2020 from Quarto on their Cool Springs imprint, it's 208 pages and available in hardcover and ebook formats.

This is a multi-resource guide with general chapters for planning, creating, and succeeding at making an edible garden: siting, building, gathering materials, soil building, tending, planting, and harvesting. Each of the chapters include multiple mini-tutorials for garden tasks and supplies. The tools and necessary ingredients are pictured and explained. All of them include step by step instructions in clear and accessible language.

The writing is upbeat and accessible. This would make a super resource for a community garden lending library, school library, or gardener's home library. Many of the tutorials would be appealing and appropriate for children with a teacher/facilitator. Everything is so vibrant and beautiful. It made my fingers itch to get digging, really.

Four stars. Well written and informative.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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Repeat after me!
I will not go to the plant store until I have a plan.
I seriously need to start using this mantra!

Kitchen Garden Revival is an expansive guide for creating your own kitchen garden. It was filled with beautiful photos and extensive instructions that covered all aspects of building your own kitchen garden from beginning to end. The book was broken into two sections; building your garden space and growing your garden. Burke even included advice and templates on tracking your climate.

Honestly, everybody should have a garden. It’s amazing to have plants that you’ve grown used in your cooking, but Kitchen Garden Revival was really marginalizing. It was very much geared towards a certain type of gardener in a certain demographic. The gardens, although beautiful and useful, weren’t really designed for the average household.

All in all, Kitchen Garden Revival was full of great how-to knowledge, beautiful gardens and lots of inspiration, and if you have the time, space, money and ability to create one of these beautiful kitchen gardens, this book will absolutely help you with that endeavor.

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An informative and useful book for whoever has a small garden.
The explanations are clear and the book is well written.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group -Cool Springs Press and #NetGalley for a temporary digital ARC of #KITCHENGARDENREVIVAL A modern guide to creating a stylish small-scale, low-maintenance edible garden by Nicole Johnsey Burke.

When I was a child I thought that everyone ate fresh vegetables from their own garden. When we visited, Grandad would let us pick peas and pull baby carrots and eat them in his garden. Grammy's immaculate garden next to their house was off limits, but she lovingly shared her bounty at mealtime. Mother has always had a kitchen garden, even when she was 85!
KITCHEN GARDEN REVIVAL has gorgeous photos and illustrations, and helpful charts and advice. Nicole Johnsey Burke is experienced with kitchen gardens and tells how to install highly tailored food gardens containing easy-to-maintain raised planting beds laid out in an organized geometric pattern.
3.5 stars
April 25, 2020 posted to NetGalley, Goodreads, Savvy Reader

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The Kitchen Garden Revival is about creating and building a small area in the garden for growing a small amount of produce (fruit, veg & herbs) for you and your family. The schemes shown in this book are for raised beds.

The first part of the book explains how to build the garden, from selecting the right plot/area to building those raised beds and pathways to intersperse them. These are generally not something you can knock up in a weekend, as they require some planning to get you going.

Part two of the book looks at choosing the plants to grow, how to grow and tend to them and finally when to harvest. It contains basic information on how to get started with the planting from seeds, be it in trays or direct in the soil.

I thought the book lacked a little information, such say showing suggested layouts of plants that could be planted together to make good use of your beds. This would be good especially for those who are just starting out with a kitchen garden, which seems to be what this book is aiming for in it's readership.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

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A beautiful book that will give you the confidence to start your own kitchen garden to grow herbs and vegetables. As the author says herself, don't expect to save money on this endeavor, especially at first--her estimates for the cost of starting your own garden are a little shocking. But the lure of fresh vegetables that you grow yourself will draw in many home cooks. Lush photography for inspiration. I was expecting more information on growing specific kinds of plants, but the book is fairly light on this topic.

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Having just taken over a large allotment I read this book with gusto. My family & I are hoping to be able to plant varying plants to create a kitchen garden within the allotment as we are interested in growing fruit & vegetables rather than flowers & shrubs.
I found lots of inspiration within this book and it prompted even more discussion and planning as to what we should be planting. Looking forward to enjoying the results over the coming seasons & years.

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Does what it says on the tin! A full, complete guide to setting up your permanent, stylish, edible garden. This isn't for people who want to dip their toes in, really, it's for people ready to dive in but don't know how.

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This book focuses on a particular type of vegetable gardening called kitchen gardening. The author explains how to site, construct, plant and maintain a garden that is easily accessible to your kitchen. The photography makes you want to start one right away. Various sizes are provided, and the focus is on sustainable techniques for all aspects. I'm particularly impressed by the focus on using sustainable materials (no peat moss!) and integrated pest management (IPM). I would like to see a bit more on companion planting. A good primer for anyone who wants to start a small garden to grow produce.

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This was certainly a fun book to read…and desperately needed to help with the winter blahs. I consider myself a pretty decent gardener, but I found such interesting things in Nicole Johnsey Burke’s book, Kitchen Garden Revival, that I cannot wait to get out and do some rearranging on my garden beds. It was also pretty interesting how she grouped vegetable and plants by groups…that was kind of surprising. The whole idea of the book was how great a veggie garden close (or not close) to your kitchen would be. She offers several examples of garden layouts, building materials, and even tells how to harvest. All in all, this is a very inspiring, uplifting, colorful garden manual.

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This is a lovely guide and resource for anyone wanting to learn more about gardening, especially in small spaces. The instructions are clear and concise with great ideas.

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Pleasant, well photographed book. Lots of ideas. Rather short on execution. And on the suggested plantings. Could have been much more comprehensive if in a longer book.

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There are parts of this lavishly illustrated new garden book that I really liked, and parts that had me rather frustrated. The author helps homeowners set up kitchen gardens and also has maintained her own at many houses over the years. She tends towards high end, expensive gardens and the instructions reflect this. I cringed to see how much she estimated it would cost to put in your own kitchen garden, as it's just not that expensive at all if you don't care about the fancy aesthetic. My own kitchen gardens are simple raised beds that my husband and kids built with inexpensive safe lumber, homemade compost, and good Minnesota dirt. It's true that they don't offer the gorgeous architectural design of Burke's beautiful raised beds and metal arches, but at the heart of it a kitchen garden is just about growing food.

Burke does give good advice on topics like the families of produce that most gardeners plant, seed starting, dealing with pests, and planting close instead of in the wide rows that seed packets tend to recommend. She doesn't credit square foot gardening for this, but that really is the book/method that started gardeners on ignoring the seed packet spacing guides and learning to pack plants closely together in beds.

There are beautiful photos, helpful charts, and great advice (though not detailed advice on the garden plants). Burke is quite a cheerleader, which new gardeners may find encouraging. I would have liked to see more examples of simple kitchen gardens like those of our grandmothers (okay, my grandma ran a university, but other grandmothers had inspirational kitchen gardens). Readers who are looking for modern, beautiful kitchen gardens will be especially happy with Burke's ideas, but all gardeners are likely to find something useful or inspirational.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

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A lovely little book for new gardeners looking to set up a small to medium sized "kitchen garden" (aka an herb/vegetable/fruit garden that is regularly planted and harvested for use in everyday cooking). Lots of inspirational pictures and designs for layouts, and good instructions on how to plot, build and fill your kitchen garden. Would've liked a bit more info on the plants.

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