Growing Beautiful Food

Book excerpt: With the paradigm shift toward local and homegrown food, gardeners and foodies have come to relish beautiful vegetable gardens and beautiful meals. Author Matthew Benson writes that beauty inspires behavior, and he believes that we can and will eat better, be healthier, and live more sustainably when we grow food that's visually enticing. Benson restored a time-worn gentleman's farm and operates a CSA on one small acre of the land, offering vegetables, orchard fruit, cut flowers, herbs, eggs, and honey from the property. His garden-to-table operation offers an edible feast of textures, colors, and aromas and has grown into a way to feed others, while pushing back against the industrial food system in a small but meaningful way. Growing Beautiful Food is both inspiration and instruction, with detailed growing advice for 50 remarkable crops, a memorable narrative, and evocative imagery. It's a photographic journey through four seasons in the garden, fueling the dream that you can connect to the land by growing your own food. Benson encourages us to start small like he did, celebrate every harvest, and understand that heartbreaking crop losses are simply part of the process. Whether gardeners, families, farmers, or chefs, readers will come to the table motivated by the flavor of homegrown, the message of self sufficiency, and the beautiful food that's as local as their backyards.