H&G Review: Kitchen Garden Living

A book—and lifestyle—aimed at sharing joy one veggie at a time
by Kate Jonuska

SOME GARDENING BOOKS are meant to be reference material, full of facts and tips that are consulted often over the years. Others focus on gorgeous photography that inspires as much as it educates. While it certainly contains both loads of expert instruction and vivid photos, “Kitchen Garden Living: Seasonal Growing and Eating from a Beautiful, Bountiful Food Garden” by Bailey Van Tassel is a different beast altogether. It’s a book that paints kitchen gardening as a lifestyle choice that positively affects all it touches.

“Kitchen garden living is about placing the garden as a cornerstone in our lives,” Van Tassel writes, “a place from which we draw inspiration, connect to and learn from the land, celebrate traditions old and new, and create a home around the bounty and brilliance of our backyard (or front yard, like I once did).”

She starts the book there, in the front-yard community garden that was the first Van Tassel ever tackled. A more active and lyrical writer than most gardening experts, she says that gardening “opened me up to the ordinary magic that we all need daily to survive the mundane.”

That experience—connecting with the soil, her family and their neighbors over fresh food—was so transformative that it led Van Tassel to become not only an author but also the founder of The Kitchen Garden Society, a thriving social media community.

Her first book, “Kitchen Garden Living” aims to show readers how to similarly start and maintain a life inspired by the garden. To that end, it includes tons of useful information about planning, growing and tending your garden, from soil amendments and seed selection to which plants require regular dividing and which crops require curing.

But on those pages sure to be marked for reference, the tone remains easy, emphasizing the accessibility of kitchen gardening to folks at any life stage.

“Ten minutes a day,” she insists. “At the very minimum, an average-sized kitchen garden can be kept thriving with a mere ten minutes a day of focused energy. Twenty minutes is ideal for me and aligns with what doctors recommend for anyone hoping to manage stress through gardening.”

Most unique, however, is the intentionality Van Tassel encourages, for instance, through exercises that engage the senses in the garden and help recognize the seasons. She offers ways to mark the year’s solstices and equinoxes and likens the seasons to inhales and exhales.

Also, she incorporates her adorable young children not only in the colorful photography but with tips for engaging kids with the garden, sorted by age. Gardening, she says, unlocks wonder and awe in children.

In addition to improving the lives of your family, Van Tassel stresses throughout “Kitchen Garden Living” that gardening also helps grow community, and she includes recipes for get-togethers, plus a super-crafty section with ideas of how to gift and share your garden’s bounty.

“The famous quote is, ‘A rising tide lifts all ships,’ but I like to think of it as, ‘A growing garden saves all souls,’” she writes. “…To share your kitchen garden experience is to share joy.”

This review originally published in the Su Libro section of Su Casa Magazine.