The Family Kitchen Garden

We couldn't squeeze all the fruit and veg into our book, so some of the less common varieties didn't make the final cut. For the most popular things to grow, you'll have to buy the book, but for some of the others, download them free here:

Anyone who has fallen in love with Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, or Mr. McGregor’s kitchen garden in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit, will also be inspired by the power of the forgotten English walled garden in this book. The opportunity for urban children everywhere to witness and partake in the pleasures of planting, nurturing, tending, and harvesting food for the table cannot be underestimated.

Three women from London, endowed with remarkable good sense and thrift, have created a small miracle within the old walls of Chiswick House, in central London. With the help of school children from all over the city, they have renovated this centuries-old garden, brought it back to life, and in the process, have invested in the lives of these kids.

At the heart of this story is every child’s desire to engage with the real world through authentic work and good old-fashioned sweat and dirty fingernails. As Americans, so many of us have strayed from the pleasure of honest labor, drawn to the siren songs of technology, the ease of industrial food, and the continuous strain of doing more. We have forgotten the perfume of freshly dug earth, the outrageous biology of a compost pile, the pleasures of creating a garden oasis, and sharing it with other creatures on this earth. This book shows us how to reengage with this world.

The Family Kitchen Garden reminds us that children are great workers and capable of amazing tasks when we let them. This un-fussy and informative book, with a distinctly British view of the world, provides us with a kid’s-eye view of a great garden project. The common-sense advice and step-by-step instructions will help anyone interested in digging in. So get out your secateurs (pruning shears), hook up your water butts (rainwater barrels), slip into your Wellies (rubber boots), and get started!

Arden Bucklin and Rachel Pringle, San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance www.sfgreenschools.org

For more about the London project, see

www.kitchengarden.org.uk