Living with Herbs: A Treasury of Useful Plants for the Home and Garden

Pleasance Crawford is a Canadian landscape and garden-history researcher
and writer and the co-author of Garden Voices: Two Centuries of Canadian
Garden Writing.

Besides helping her husband, Jigs, operate a hand- and horse-powered
farm near Orangedale, Nova Scotia, Jo Ann Gardner runs a successful herb
and jam business. Her fourth book about gardening covers the essentials
of herb culture and usage.

Gardner discusses growing and harvesting methods, and offers general
ideas for using herbs in the home. Particularly good is her chapter on
developing “the integrated landscape” by putting plants where they
grow best. More than half of the book consists of detailed,
alphabetically arranged descriptions of the 74 herbs Gardner rai-ses
most successfully in Cape Breton conditions.

Readers learn how to make the products Gardner sells at nearby markets,
such as her Kitchen and Garden Herbal Foot Soak, Herbal Skin Freshener,
Simmering Sweet White Clover Room Freshener, and Rose Petal Potpourri.
Cooks will find tempting recipes for Gardner’s popular herb salts,
jellies, seasoning mixes, spreads, and vinegars. Those interested in the
medicinal uses of herbs should turn to other books Gardner recommends.
As she readily admits, she and Jigs rarely get sick, and their own
self-treatments consist mainly of homemade horehound cough drops and
herb-based teas.

Many will be surprised to learn that the Gardners live without phone,
fax, e-mail, or car, yet welcome visitors who “just drop by.” While
this book is no substitute for a conversation in the garden, it is a
generous introduction to the author, a spirited country woman with a lot
to say about herbs.