Book Review: The Bountiful Container
by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey
432 pages, 6 x 9 inches, Softcover.

Often when folks come and visit our gardens and experience the abundance of vegetables, salad greens, herbs, and edible flowers, they comment that they wish they had space to grow some food for themselves. In McGee and Stuckey's delightful new book The Bountiful Container, it becomes clear that pretty much everyone has enough space to grow at least some edibles to enhance their diet and expand their palate. Whether it's a few culinary herbs on a windowsill, a tasty selection of salad greens and edible flowers on a sunny balcony, or a patio loaded with every conceivable vegetable, culinary herbs, edible flowers, and even figs and lemons, these two experienced gardeners and engaging writers lend us the knowledge to make it happen.

While covering all the basics, including choosing containers, creating custom soil mixes, and selecting suitable varieties, The Bountiful Container, with its focus on edibles, goes far beyond what we expect from a container gardening book to help you maximize production from the smallest of spaces, without sacrificing the beauty that one would expect from a container garden in close proximity to our home. Their ideas for interplanting containers with compatible varieties and succession planting with seasonal selections will help insure a bountiful harvest and beautiful containers throughout the year.

To stimulate the imagination of the space-challenged gardener, McGee and Stuckey offer an assortment of creative designs for theme gardens, from the practical to the whimsical. For the creative chef, there's "The Ethnic Market at Your Doorstep" featuring such worldly delights as eggplant, tomatoes, and basil, as well as garlic chives, lemongrass, and tat soi. For the romantic at heart, there's the "Romeo and Juliet" theme garden with basil, calendula, chervil, marjoram, marigolds, and rosemary, in honor of William Shakespeare who often drew on the symbolism of herbs and flowers in his writing. Other favorite theme gardens include "The Hanging Gardens of Babylon," "Lavender Lady," "Country Kitchen in the Round," The Salad Basket," and "Tea Time." With 18 of these gardens interspersed throughout the book, there's something for everyone.

While The Bountiful Container is packed with a plethora of information on how to grow edible container gardens of every ilk imaginable, McGee and Stuckey don't stop there. In each section, they also include hints for using the vegetables, flowers, and herbs being discussed, including a number of related mouthwatering recipes, such as Mardi Gras Salad featuring succulent greens and homemade dressing, adorned with gold and blue flowers. Other recipes include Fresh Tomato Soup, Rosemary Pesto, and Spinach with Lemon Thyme.

Whether you've got 40 acres or 4 square feet, you'll find The Bountiful Container to be rich in information and inspiration to expand your horticultural and culinary horizons.

Reviewed by Scott Vlaun
Photographer and Editor of Seeds of Change