Chef's Garden: Fresh Produce from Small Spaces

Growing your own produce can be compulsive―the process of sowing, tending and harvesting crops brings gardeners a sense of satisfaction, along with the supply of fresh vegetables, herbs, and fruit. Acclaimed designer Terence Conran, known for his beautiful indoor rooms, now turns his attention outside, as he combines a passion for fresh cooking ingredients with his well-documented decorating flair and invention. Conran shows how to create a kitchen garden in the tiniest of spaces, covering the very best fruit, vegetables, herbs and edible flowers to cultivate there. He even includes hard-to-find rarities like mizuna greens, and crops with a “fugitive” flavor that are best eaten freshly picked. There’s advice on design, planting, timing, harvesting, storage, and even 20 inspiring sample recipes, all colorfully presented.

British tycoon Terence Conran has turned to gardening with the same exacting eye and aesthetic sensibilities that have made his books on home decorating such a success over the years (The Essential House Book, Terence Conran's Easy Living, etc.). His modern, clean, uncluttered look extends here to the kitchen garden, his simplicity and good taste to the recipes. Conran believes it worthwhile to cultivate a kitchen garden in even the smallest of spaces, seeing it as a chance to grow chemical-free, more intensely flavored varieties of fruit and vegetables than can be found in the supermarket.

The Chef's Garden is a beautiful book, full of color photographs of luscious produce. Who would have thought purple broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and chard could be so ornamental? Best of all, you don't need an acre of farmland to cultivate these fruits and vegetables; most are shown growing in small urban gardens or in pots on decks and patios. There is even a plan for growing a kitchen garden on a rooftop.

The point of all this bounty is in the cooking and eating, and Conran emphasizes taste and appearance by using herbs and edible flowers, with information on growing, propagating, and preserving a variety of the most useful kinds. Conran recommends container culture, but also gives a detailed plan for a tiny, formal herb garden (10 by 3 feet) which will hold a generous array of herbs enclosed by rosemary hedges. Detailed instructions are given for pruning dwarf fruit trees, and training espaliers, to encourage fruit production in the smallest possible spaces.

Conran goes beyond aesthetics to cover all the practicalities: selection, soil prep, sowing, thinning, protection from pests, disease and weather, harvesting, and finally, cooking. Eighteen delicious and simple recipes inspire the gardener. Gratin of chard, a spinach and ricotta tart with tapenade, caldo verde, and a mouthwatering salad of figs, ricotta, and honey are a few of the international recipes showcasing homegrown fruit and vegetables. --Valerie Easton