An Amish Garden: A Year in the Life of an Amish Garden

This is a book about what it's like to enjoy having a big garden and performing the associated seasonal tasks. Though written by an Amish woman, details about the Amish are not of uppermost importance here. A former teacher, Lapp merely intended to write about life with a garden; she successfully teaches readers that Amish gardeners are a lot like gardeners everywhere: overly ambitious, optimistic, nostalgic for better growing seasons, and satisfied when something ordinary becomes something beautiful. Her high-spiritedness, curiosity, and humor are evident in anecdotes beginning with January, when she ponders seed ordering. Readers will relate to Lapp's enthusiasm for spring, marvel at her patience working with three small sons, and empathize with her envy of friends' gardens. Though partial to flowerbeds, she writes primarily of her kitchen garden and of her work preserving its harvest. Liberally illustrated with photos of six gardens and gardeners, the book is not a detailed handbook of techniques but an honest account of a gardener's year with its successes and failures.