UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all of you for your wonderful comments, and congratulations to the winner Heather.
Dear friends,
This month I’m excited to give away a brand new copy of Rosalind Creasy’s terrific book, Edible Landscaping: Now You Can Have Your Gorgeous Garden and Eat It Too! ( Counterpoint Press, $44.95). Rosalind is a landscape designer, garden writer and photographer, and she is considered by many to be the leading authority on landscaping with food plants.
Rosalind’s 410-page book is full of great design ideas, practical growing advice, helpful illustrations, garden layouts, gorgeous photos, plant combination tips, and resources for buying plants and seeds. I get so much inspiration from the beautiful gardens she shares that show climbing bean plants, frilly rhubarb, squat cabbages, colorful cherry tomatoes and other food plants happily growing with flowers, shrubs and ornamentals.
She begins with an overview of the evolution of traditional landscaping, and lays out a new vision for creating beautiful garden spaces with edible food plants. Next, she covers the basics of laying the groundwork for a successful food garden, including soil amendments and hardscaping considerations. Planning and design basics are followed by chapters with specific advice for adding herbs, vegetables, fruits, berries and nuts to your garden, including tips for small spaces.
The second half of the book is a huge compendium of edible plant varieties, with so much great information: buying and growing tips, how to use the produce in cooking, and even a numeric “Effort Scale” to help lazy gardeners like me figure out if we can devote the time to proper growing.
This book is an inspiring addition to any gardener’s library. If you’d like to enter to win your own copy, just leave a comment on this page and reply to this question:
When it comes to enjoying fresh summer produce, what’s your favorite fruit, veggie, berry or herb?
The giveaway is open to anyone with a U.S. shipping address, and will run through next Wednesday, May 22 at midnight MST. I’ll use Random.org to draw the lucky winner’s name on May 23rd.
BIG thanks to Counterpoint Press for providing the book for this giveaway, and good luck!
Best always,
My very favorite summer produce is tomatoes. Not only are they good for you; they are also sooooo delicious, especially warm off the vine! Growing up in New Jersey and eating famous Jersey tomatoes every year, I now long for them every summer in my now home state, North Carolina. My mom would carry some on the plane every summer when she would visit me. I miss them!
Definitely sugar snap peas
I would have to say favorite vegetable would be the first taste of sweet corn of the season.
Our family loves cherry tomatoes and lemon cucumbers from our summer garden.
I’m a tomato girl. I love to plant peppers too in containers.
Basil! It goes with every other great summer crop – tomatoes, corn, and more – and it absolutely must be fresh or it’s useless in a dish. It’s so expensive (and usually half rotten) when purchased at the grocery in the winter that I try to just wait for the summer season. Planted mine last weekend, so please no hail!
Blueberries!
Mine is mint (specifically yerba buena) for making mojitos and enjoying them out on the porch or in the yard! Also goes great in a fruit salad.
I absolutely adore Beefsteak Tomatoes !!!
I LOVE fresh pickling cucumbers! I have eaten 4-5 at a time right off the vine!
Mint is my favorite to landscape with. I put them near hose bibs so that the aromatherapy amplifies the garden experience.
Sungold tomatoes right off the vine!!!
I’d have to say tomatoes. I can eat tomato and mayo sandwiches on homemade sourdough for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
I want to know more about squat cabbages
I love anything that comes out of my garden, but my favorite is tomatoes. Alas, we haven’t had a good crop in quite some time. My second favorite are Black Mission figs.
I love, LOVE fresh peas – straight from the pod, slightly warm from the sun. Runner up, tomatoes! Guy Clark had it right – true love homegrown tomatoes.
I’d have to say raspberries are my favorite! But I also really like growing different types of squash.
We can pick only one? That makes it tough.
Ok, I’ll go with blueberries. Just as June arrives and the daylilies are in full bloom, the two blueberry plants we have in half whisky barrels proffer up a bounty of little indigo gems. We have to guard them jealously, as the birds in the garden do their best to beat us to the punch, eating them when they’re only half-ripe. And now I have to compete with my two young sons, who can’t resist popping every ripe berry into their mouth before I get home from work. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a berry or two hiding beneath a leaf. Otherwise, no berries for Pop.
I’ll sneak in a second choice: Sungold Cherry Tomatoes! They’re almost as sweet as the blueberries, but they keep coming all summer long. My boys eat them like candy. I just planted my summer garden this very morning, along with marigolds and basil to keep away the dreaded hornworm caterpillars, who, like the birds, attempt to devour the goodies before we do.
Ahhh, summer. :D
I love tomatoes and of course basil to really set them off.
My favorite summer fruit is watermelon. Good tasting and helps keep me hydrated. Thanks!
Tomatoes. Tomatoes. Tomatoes. I dice them up and put them in a colander with a little salt to drain off some of the liquid. I then add some olive oil and Italian-style herbs. I brush some baguette slices with really good olive oil and toast them in my pannini press, then spread them with my fresh tomato mixture. This is the best meal I ever have. EVER. And it only works with tomatoes that you grow yourself.
I’m intrigued at the possibility of edible plants grown in lieu of more traditional landscaping and would like to incorporate local native plants as possible.
Eliza,
Can it be peaches from my peach tree (or does it have to be a vegetable)?
In Colorado we often lose our fruit starts to late spring snows, but when they survive these onslaughts—it’s heaven on earth in late summer! Fresh off the tree or baked in a peach cobbler they bring juicy joy!
My favorite summer produce is a tie – it’s either the cherries that you pick straight from the tree and eat until you get sick, or it’s those teeny tiny juicy wild strawberries – although I haven’t had one in years so maybe it’s just the memory of them that’s sweet! Then again, maybe it’s the mirabelle plum… I’m not sure, but I think the common trend here is fruit that reminds me of my childhood summers in the French countryside!
I love blackberries. I remember my mother and I taking long walks in rural Indiana hunting for blackberries.
I love a good, homegrown tomato.
I know a lot of other people have already said tomatoes, but is there really anything better than a tomato fresh off the vine? I remember eating one after another as a kid until my mouth was sore.
Whoa, that’s an incredibly tough question! I love my blackberries, snow peas, fresh lettuce, green beans and tomatoes… I’d probably pick tomatoes because they taste like real tomatoes instead of the cardboard tasteless ones that you buy in stores.
My favorite would be a combo of tomatoes, cucumbers and leaf lettuce as a great salad!
strawberries yum
My favorite would be the tomato. I absolutely love a garden fresh mater :)
So many fresh fruits and vegetables I love. Snow Peas, celery, cilantro, jalapenos….so many! :-) Thank you.
Strawberries and cilantro
Toss up between tomatoes and basil. I use my bumper crop of basil to make pesto that lasts all winter. And if I am lucky enough to have a bumper crop of tomatoes, I turn it into spaghetti sauce. That stuff is worth gold!
When it comes to enjoying fresh summer produce, what’s your favorite fruit, veggie, berry or herb?
I enjoy mugwort because of its properties for dreaming.
My favourite fruit is blueberry
I love so many, but I think my all time favorite is cherry tomatoes. So fun to pop them in your mouth while you’re out and about in the yard.
My favorite is the good old apple. Thanks for the giveaway!
I would love to win the book. My favorite fruit is Black Persian mulberry.
definitely cherry tomatoes
I love cucumbers and blueberries
I really enjoy watermelon, cucumbers, (heirloom) tomatoes, blackberries, strawberries, cilantro and oregano. ♥️
I love fresh spinach.. My dad is a cherry tomato person, so we grow those as well
I know I’m boring, but tomatoes are my favorite! So many things to do with them. I love making spicy tomato sauces. Just need to learn to start canning!
I love fresh corn on the cob.
Blackberries and figs, straight off the bush and tree.
Favorite summer produce…watermelon is one that I look forward to all year long. I also love fresh corn and tomatoes out of the garden, but honestly, anything home grown sounds good to me!
Sugar snap peas! So easy to grow and so delicious!
I love the tomatoes that come out of my garden because I use them in pasta dishes.
Mint for Mojitos!
Without a doubt, any kind of peppers! There are so many varieties I can’t choose just one.
Definitely watermelon! It just makes it feel like summer!
Cherry tomatoes with fresh herbs! I love to make my own tartes with them, wonderful summer treat!
MY FAVORITE IS A TOMATO….THOSE TOMATO SANDWICHES ARE GREAT.
Hard to pick one, but have to go with blueberries. A versatile, delicious superfood!
My favorite fruit is peaches. I love them when they are just picked and still warm from the sun. So juicy and refreshing.
I like every one. Cucumbers would top my list, with some fresh mint.
Thanks for the contest.
enjoy growing herbs and vegetables
I like herbs, especially the basil for pizzas!
I like tomatoes and cucumbers.
My favorite fruit is strawberrie. I truly enjoy their sweet summer flavor.
Thank you to all of you for your great comments. You’ve given us all some great summer garden (and eating) ideas! Congratulations to the book winner, Heather.