William L. Clements Library

Gardening and the Art of Growing Food

The William Clements Library contains a significant collection of catalogued resources on the subject of gardening and the art of growing food, including a variety of books, artwork, and ephemera. Many of these materials are devoted to kitchen gardens, victory gardens and herb gardens, but a number of materials also contain information and instruction specifically about growing fruit orchards, flower gardens, individual crops (grapes, corn, celery, etc.), as well as more loosely related subjects like beekeeping.

Information is to be found in manuals and handbooks, pen & ink drawings, sketches and photographs, seed and nursery stock catalogues, as well as more comprehensive works. These materials cover the specific topics of landscaping and preparing the land; growth and maintenance; climate considerations; suggested gardening implements and tools; building and using hot beds, hot houses, greenhouses, and coldframes; composting and the use of manure; and also more philosophical topics like the merits and benefits of being or becoming a gardener.

Some books highlight the array of varietals of vegetables, fruit, and herbs, and include their botanical names and unique characteristics; others contain plain, practical descriptions of the plants as foodstuffs, their uses, and the best modes of cultivating them.

Most books on kitchen gardening are more comprehensive works that include information about cultivating not only vegetables, but herbs and fruits as well. Your findings will likely produce a long list of titles; a shorter list of sample titles is shown below, to help provide a quicker start to your research. In the list below we also suggest a few supplementary secondary sources available at other University of Michigan libraries, containing, for example, a history of kitchen gardening in America.

Materials related to gardening and the art of growing food can be found in the Mirlyn library catalog, by using the following keywords in the “title, ” “subject,” or “all fields” fields:
Gardening
Vegetable gardening
Kitchen gardens
Victory gardens
Herb gardening
Nurseries
Nursery stock
Seeds
Fruit culture

In these and similar works, the art and act of growing our own food can be traced from the beginnings of this country, through the life and times of Thomas Jefferson, and to the modern day. If you are interested in exploring the history of growing food in America more deeply, the catalogued items in the Clements’ collection include about 50 early classic works and many 19th century works written both pre- and post- Civil War. Through these books, one can learn the variety of gardening methods used throughout history, and trace various trends that occurred due to the development of new equipment or new ideas about how to be more productive in the garden.

If you want to be happy for an hour, get intoxicated; if you want to be happy for three days, get married; if you want to be happy forever, become a gardener.
~Old English saying