Want to Help with My Next Book?

Some of you know that I’ve been visiting public libraries in Oregon and Washington this spring, talking about how to grow a glorious vegetable garden in containers. I always explain that I use the word “vegetable” as a kind of shorthand, to encompass all kinds of edible plants: not just vegetables, but also herbs, fruits, and edible flowers.

I almost always got lots of questions about herbs. How to grow them, how to use them in cooking, how to enjoy them in other ways. And that started me thinking — maybe the garden gods are trying to tell me something. Maybe that should be my next book.

So I’m asking all my friends—and that most definitely includes you-–for your thoughts.

If you were looking for a book on herbs, what would be most useful to you?

• Are you mostly concerned with how to grow them successfully?
• Or how to use them in cooking?
• How about harvesting, drying, other ways to preserve them?
• Would you be interested in other ways to use herbs, such as natural beauty products (for example, hair rinse) or household items?
• Of those categories – gardening, cooking, other uses, which is your strongest interest?
• Is there a particular herb (or herbs) you especially want to know more about?
• Do you enjoy “armchair gardening” — that is, reading stories and legends having to do with plants? For example, how they got their names, how they were used centuries ago, what symbolism they carry in the language of flowers, things like that?

I’ll let you know, in the next newsletters, how this idea is progressing. And let me say in advance, THANK YOU for your interest and your generosity.