The Kitchen Garden (Toby Musgrave)

This stunning volume celebrates the rich history of kitchen gardens through more than 50 of the world’s finest examples, each explored in depth through gorgeous imagery, vivid storytelling, and insightful texts highlighting garden and growing details.

Organized geographically, the book reveals how climate, culture, and history inform productive gardens around the world. Readers will discover European walled gardens flush with flowers and edibles; a forward-thinking, rooftop urban farm in Singapore; and an abundant coastal garden in Patagonia that proves green things can grow in the harshest of places. Iconic locations, such as Château de Villandry and Bunny Mellon’s Oak Spring Garden, appear alongside community spaces, such as Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard in California, as well as stunning contemporary gardens by Patrice Taravella (Babylonstoren, South Africa), Arne Maynard (Gordon Castle, Scotland), Charles Stick (Sleepy Cat Farm, USA), and other renowned designers.

Gardeners of all abilities will discover the story behind each garden and its creation. Large images and informative texts offer the reader both inspiration and useful advice for what to grow in spaces of all shapes and sizes. Authored by Dr. Toby Musgrave, a garden historian and a grower at the iconic De Runde Haver community gardens in Nærum, Denmark, The Kitchen Garden includes extensive captions about each of the featured gardens, as well as an illustrated introduction charting the history of kitchen gardens and six topic essays on key subjects, including protected cropping, organic techniques, and training fruit.