The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Herbs: The art and science to grow your own herbs (Kew Experts)

by Holly Farrell

The new Kew guide to planting and cultivating herbs features 12 easy and inspiring projects as well as detailed information on 80 of the most important species to grow, all accompanied by Kew's beautiful botanical illustrations.

Herbs provide flavours and scents unlike any other, and the 80 hand-picked herbs in this book are a living trove of fresh flavours for any cook, with power to transform the simplest dish.

Find out how to grow herbs in beds, pots, borders and windowboxes, how to plant, and how to propagate and harvest your herbs, as the kew experts equip you with all you need to create a flourishing herb garden of your very own.

Following this, 80 of the most important and exciting herbs are identified, illustrated and their uses explained. This is accompanied by 12 projects which show how to develop a herb garden at the next level and use herbs in the most interesting and creative ways, from planting a herb roof to making herbal oils. 

Herbs can be used as seeds, flowers, or leaves; cooked and eaten themselves or used to infuse a dish or drink. They are high-value ingredients for foraged dishes, and must-have crops for the best restaurants as chefs realise that often the only way to capture their elusive flavour is to grow and harvest fresh herbs on their doorstep.

With this book these intense flavours can now be a reality for gardeners and home-cooks with any size of garden, from an acre to a window box. Underpinned by the authority of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the expertise of Holly Farrell this book combines practical elements with inspiration and beauty. 

This book is from the Kew Experts series, in which the top gardeners and botanical scientists from Royal Botanic Kew Gardens offer up advice and information as well as suggesting handy projects on a range of gardening topics. Other titles include: Companion to Medicinal Plants, Guide to Growing Bulbs, Guide to Growing Fruit, Guide to Growing Orchids, Guide to Growing Roses, Guide to Growing Succulents and Cacti, Guide to Growing Trees, Guide to Growing Vegetables and Guide to Growing House Plants.

• ISBN13: 9780711239364
• Publish Date: 28 March 2019 (first published 7 March 2019)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: White Lion Publishing
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 144
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Kew Gardener’s Guide to Growing Herbs is a new tutorial guide to growing and using herbs in the garden by Holly Farrell. Released 21st March 2019 by Quarto on their White Lion imprint, it's 144 pages and available in ebook and paperback format.

Whenever gardeners think about inspiration and knowledge on a worldwide scale, the Kew gardens are at the very top of a very short list. They've been going strong for almost 260 years at this point. This book includes an herbal compendium of culture and care info for more than 70 individual herbs along with several attractive plantings arranged as projects.

Worth noting. This guide is written primarily with gardeners in the British Isles in mind. The hardiness zones listed in the individual herbal listings are the ones given by the RHS (not the my link textUSDA ones). Also, the ebook version has an interactive table of contents which is very handy.

Much of the photography is from stock photos, but all of the project photos are purpose made for this edition. The culture information is straightforward and peppered with good tips and tricks for encouraging the best performance from all of your plants (and taming the 'beasts' like mint and comfrey).

Four stars. Well written and full of attractive photography.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes