The Family Kitchen Garden

Green fingered authors present fruits of their labours in wonderful new book

Book Signing

On Saturday 23rd May, 11am Annette and Jutta will be at Waterstones, 220-226 Chiswick High Road, London. W4 1PD Come and help them plant some seeds and get some great ideas of what you might enjoying growing with your children in your garden Tel:020 8995 3559 for further information. Free.

Participate

The Family Kitchen Garden - How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together By Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner and Annette Wendland

Price: £16.99. Buy it from Amazon through the icon at the bottom left of the Kitchen Garden's home page and the Kitchen Garden project will get 5%.

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“Five years ago one of us climbed over a wall and discovered a secret garden, overgrown and neglected for decades . . . it was a jungle of bindweed and bramble, lying just fifty metres from one of the busiest main roads linking central London to its principal airport, a long-forgotten corner of the grounds of Chiswick House.”

Back in 2004 Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, Annette Wendland and others began to restore this secret garden – a neglected seventeenth-century kitchen garden - at Chiswick House, bringing in hundreds of local schoolchildren to work and learn and garden and eat.

The Family Kitchen Garden - How to Plant, Grow, and Cook Together is the fruit of that experience.

With the emphasis on what will be fun to grow and suitable for a family, it provides clear instructions on growing vegetables, fruit, herbs and cutting flowers, and month-by-month advice on what to do when as well passing on child-relevant tips on how to garden with children so that both the adult and the child enjoy it!

There are recipes using homegrown fruit and veg that kids (as well as adults) will want to make and eat - from oriental summer rolls and homemade ketchup to parsnip crisps and fruit ice lollies - and projects that are accessible to the whole family, such as building a ladybird nesting house and weaving a willow wigwam for climbing plants.

"By teaching kids how to garden, they will be more likely to eat what they grow, what a rewarding way to encourage healthy foods!" says Karen.

Unlike other guides to gardening with children, these are not simple projects just for kids. Rather, the authors believe that kids can do and will enjoy the same type of gardening that adults do.

Part One focuses on the nitty-gritty of gardening with kids: how to keep sessions short, tips on how much to grow, and important safety precautions.

Part Two is a month-by-month guide on what to sow, plant, harvest, and eat. Seasonal recipes include nutritious, kid-friendly foods like parsnip chips, rhubarb cake, and homemade ketchup. Part Three is an A–Z guide to vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers.

About the authors:

Karen Liebreich is the founder and co-ordinator of the Chiswick House Kitchen Garden. Her other books include The Letter in the Bottle and Fallen Order. She has a history doctorate from Cambridge University and basic horticultural qualifications from Capel Manor.

Jutta Wagner is the crop planner and designer for the kitchen garden. She started her career as a horticulturist in Bavaria, and went on to study landscape architecture at the University of Applied Science in Berlin

Annette Wendland runs the teenage sessions at the kitchen garden. She works as a freelance photographer and studied at the London College of Printing, she specialises in architecture, food and nature photography.

Forthcoming events:

On Saturday 23rd May, 11am Annette and Jutta will be at Waterstones, 220-226 Chiswick High Road, London. W4 1PD Come and help them plant some seeds and get some great ideas of what you might enjoying growing with your children in your garden Tel:020 8995 3559 for further information. Free.

May 19, 2009