MY GARDEN: A Journal for Gardening Around the Year

Murphy's gardening calendar begins with January and goes through October, but it might just as well be read in November or December, when gardening is a gleam in the eye and there is time for leisurely contemplation. Down-to-business gardeners seeking detailed advice or look-it-up answers would do better with a more everyday sort of guide. Murphy ignores all pests except snails, for example, though she discourses on several garden helpers--bees, worms, toads, ladybugs, and praying mantises. For Murphy, gardening is not just a satisfying way to get fresh vegetables; it's a link with primitive peoples, a part of nature's ""circles""; a trigger for personal rumination (on having patience, on the color green), an inspiration for modest conceits. (""A poem is like a tomato. . . . "") And so her journal is a casual mix of folk tales, mini-essays, historical lore, botany, simple projects, and recipes. (Even these last are of a peripheral nature, dealing with herb teas and snacks and an out-of-place dried onion soup mix dip, but no real meal-type vegetable dishes.) Along with this she manages to throw in some information on mulching and composting. It has its charms--mainly for young readers with a share of patience and a musing turn of mind, who are so fascinated with gardening they could sit and think about it all day.