Book Review: The Curious Gardener’s Almanac

The Curious Gardener’s Almanac: Centuries of Practical Gardening Wisdom, by Niall Edworthy

The book for today’s review was provided by: Perigee Books, Penguin Group (USA)

At Arboreality I like to share the joy of discovery by bringing you glimpses of the trees and plants in my corner of the world. Niall Edworthy echoes this spirit with his new book, The Curious Gardener’s Almanac: Centuries of Practical Gardening Wisdom.

In his introduction, Edworthy attempts to wrap his arms around this book and explain the “what” and the “why” to little avail. Perhaps I can lend him a hand: this book is itself a garden.

The Curious Gardener’s Almanac is essentially a book of happenstance. As in a garden, you wander the pages and find yourself distracted by flowers of thought here, nuts of wisdom there, and all the while cognizant of the dark earth that engenders such a wealth of gardening wisdom.

Rather than chapters of how-to’s and when’s, Edworthy’s pages are filled with bits of poems, quotations, advice, facts, proverbs, and parables. Edworthy is not a condescending gardening guru, but like so many of us, he is a man with a basic curiosity about his garden, learning literally from the ground up.

As a self-taught gardener, I giggled with recognition when he explained the most unfortunate fate of his onions: rotted to death when left out to dry… in the rain. Those of us who did not grow up with gardens typically lack the innate wisdom of how to manage a thriving garden. What Edworthy shares with us is that not only is this wisdom not lost upon us, but that we can all find a spot of green on our thumbs if we just keep shoving it into the dirt.

Creating a garden is never an instant transformation – nor should it be. In Edworthy’s introduction he confesses, “The first year in the vegetable patch was a perfect disaster—I just scattered a variety of seeds over it, expecting it to turn into the Garden of Eden by the end of summer, like it does on the TV.”

Therein lies the deepest wisdom of all: gardening is never a process to be finished. It is an ongoing process of learning and growth of which we gardeners, proficient and novice, are a part. Edworthy’s book includes accessible advice on gardening in each season. I found it refreshing that he includes information both contemporary (like why you don’t need to water your lawn), and traditional (like companion planting and uses for herbs).

This book is like a happy little backyard garden: tangible, unassuming, nourishing, and meaningful. The Curious Gardener’s Almanac is not a reference book—it is a book of discovery. Flip through its pages, and what you’ll find is a chorus of shovels and rakes, plucking at the earth to see what comes up.