Product Description

A hands-on gardener, Henry Homeyer gives practical advice on how to garden, whether building a hot box, transplanting peonies, defeating the deer, growing ladyslipper orchids and shiitake mushrooms, or keeping the birds out of the berry bushes. Each month covers a range of topics relevant to the season: starting seedlings, edging and mulching, gardening with children, getting rid of invasive plants, pruning , planting shrubs for attracting and feeding birds, putting the garden to bed, growing houseplants, . . . These are just a few of Homeyer's 69 short "reflections and observations" on matters of interest to amateur, dedicated, and armchair gardeners alike.

Homeyer grew up in the 1950s learning about organic gardening from a grandfather who used manure tea and compost, not 10-10-10, herbicides, and DDT. For him, organic gardening is not a political position, but a common sense approach to having the best soil and the healthiest plants.

Of special relevance to denizens of zones 3-5, the climatic belt which includes New England and runs across southern Canada and west to the Rockies, each of the twelve chapters (one for each month) contains several pieces combining technical information, practical tips, personal reflections, and more than a little humor.

An unusual feature is Homeyer's interviews with other gardeners. Meet Joe Mooney, the aging wizard of turf at Fenway Park. Spend an afternoon in the garden with Jamaica Kincaid. Visit Jean and Wes Cate, growers of heirloom vegetables at Fox Run Farm. Learn more about the White House gardens from chief horticulturist Dale Haney. Or marvel at Marguerite Tewksbury, an 85-year-old organic gardener who single-handedly runs a farm stand, drives her 1950 Ford Ferguson tractor, and weeds her 6,000-square-foot vegetable patch with a full-sized rototiller. "She doesn't say that keeping active and eating organically keeps her healthy and vigorous, but I have a feeling that it does," writes Homeyer.

Product Details

• Published on: 2003-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

From Booklist
With the plainspoken, straightforward manner for which New Englanders are famous, Homeyer espouses the philosophy and practices of organic gardening: no insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, or chemical fertilizers should ever make their way into the earth or onto a plant. For Homeyer, such customs reflect not only a respect for the environment but a reverence for the gardening traditions imparted to him first at his grandfather's knee and then honed through the University of New Hampshire Master Gardener programs. Starting with March and progressing through the year in monthly chapters, Homeyer culls the best of his weekly newspaper gardening columns to offer advice on everything from starting seedlings to growing garlic, all from an organic-gardening approach. Along the way, he introduces fellow organic gardeners: some locally infamous, such as 85-year-old Marguerite Tewksbury; others nationally famous, such as renowned garden author Jamaica Kincaid. Spare, succinct, and sincere, Homeyer's guidance is down-home friendly and unthreatening, warm and wise. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Publisher
7 x 10 trim. 10 photos, 3 maps, 33 figs.

About the Author
HENRY HOMEYER is a landscaper and garden designer whose column appears weekly in ten regional newspapers. He is the Vermont and New Hampshire editor of People, Places, and Plants, a New England-only gardening magazine. He also writes for The Boston Globe, Gardener's Companion, Yankee, and other publications.

Customer Reviews

From the fields of New England to any gardeners heart
I found this to be a nice collection of topical articles on gardening in New England and the subject of gardening in general. His historical article on Amsterdam's economic crash because of tulip-mania is entertaining. I think that any gardener whether in the Northeast to the Northwest and most of the space between would enjoy and profit from this volume.

The style of the book is conversational and zealous which shows the sensitivity gardeners often show to their gardens & fellow humans. Mr. Homeyer is an organic gardener at heart but does give credence where it is due. The best thing is he asks questions and weighs the answers he finds. And like many New Englanders he uses common sense.

This book is a nice read in the off-season, and introduces the reader to old and new subjects. His explanations are simple but complete so even a new gardener would benefit from the advice presented. Even an armchair gardener will enjoy the journey through this gardener's year. This book is as much about the garden as it is about the gardener.

Regional notes for a national audience
It is a tricky thing to adapt columns written with a particular region in mind into a book with a national audience -- a special trick, perhaps, when a kind of gardening calendar is retained to organize the text. Henry Homeyer's practical "reflections and observations" may seem most germane to gardeners in New England, but if you know enough to place his experience in your own climate, you will find plenty to interest you.

What I like best about this book are the pieces that transcend zones entirely, such as a report of his visit to White House gardens and his interview with Jamaica Kincaid. Discreet illustrations (block prints, a few black and white photos, and a few drawings) add to the text. And there is an excellent index, something which alas can no longer be taken for granted in gardening books.

Despite my misgivings about how serviceable some of these essays are beyond New England, Henry Homeyer's plain and personal prose reminded me of the great American garden writer, Henry Mitchell. I think Mitchell would not be unhappy to find this book on a shelf alongside his own.