NEW CROP OF HARVEST BOOKS & APPS

“Grow Harvest Cook: 280 Recipes from the Ground Up,” by by Meredith Kirton and  Mandy Sinclair (Hardie Grant Books, 2014), is a handbook for growing, harvesting, and cooking fruits and vegetables. The book stirs up the thrill of a home harvest. Your pantry will groan under the weight of homegrown homemade food.

Photo: Courtesy of Peter’s of Kensington. 

This beautiful 400-page book, chock full of gorgeous photos, recipes, and information, is a perfect how-to for the newbie, as well as the established home gardener. With 200 seasonal recipes to cook from the ground up, you’ll enjoy creating and eating what you grow.

Photo: Courtesy of Booktopia.

"Warm Prawn, Pea, and Avocado Salad," and "Beetroot and Goat Cheese Tart" recipes, will keep your mouth watering while you wait for those seeds to turn into seedlings, then stretch and fill out in all directions, until they are ready to harvest. Read about how to grow, harvest and cook more than 80 types of produce, from Almonds to Zucchini. Learn how to can, dry, and freeze them too.

Photo: Courtesy of the Seattle Times.

“Harvest: An Adventure into the Heart of Family Farms,” by Richard Horan (Harper Perennial, 2012), is, in itself, a bounty of stories gathered during harvest time from the fields, as well as from around the farm tables and hearths of a scattering of independent organic farms across the US.

Horan takes a transformational road trip, guided by the ripening of crops, from Maine, to Kansas, to California. He lends an ear and lends a hand bringing in the harvest. The book’s main chapters, Turkey Red Wheat, Green Beans, Blueberries, Tomatoes, Red Raspberries and Brussel Sprouts, Wild Rice (Manooman), Cranberries, Potatoes, Walnuts, and Grapes, roughly tell you where and when he’s been.

Photo: Courtesy of These Salty Oats. Couple at a farm.

The book came recommended by my friend, Mike McGrath, gardening guru of You Bet Your Garden, a weekly nationally syndicated Public Radio show devoted to “chemical-free horticultural hijinks." McGrath, former Editor-In-Chief of Organic Gardening Magazine, connected with the passion and the grit pouring out of Harvest’s tales. ”I really enjoyed the book; a real celebration of the hard -- and,  ahem -- beautiful -- reality of harvesting food,” McGrath says, with a touch of homegrown irascibility.

You will immerse in the humanity of food -- you will really feel these farm families as they run through their chores, contemplate the scientific and political realities of farming, nurture their crops and their families, and dream about what life might be like if it was all a little easier.

Photo: Courtesy of Amazon.

Writer Max Watman was raised in the Shenendoah Valley. After a time away from his roots, and the roots of real natural food, Watman returns to eat and live authentically again -- from scratch. “Harvest: Field Notes from a Far-Flung Pursuit of Real Food” (W.M. Norton & Company, 2014) is a beautiful new memoir of a life rediscovered through hunting, fishing, gardening, baking, cheese-making, preserving, pickling, livestock tending, and butchering. And, as many delightful memoirs do, this one is filled with the rollercoaster circuit of life, which in Watman’s case, includes both domesticated and wild.

Written in a beautifully homespun style, sprinkled with humor, and full of flavor, we like it -- a lot.

Photo: Courtesty of WarrenEllis.

“Harvest,” by Jim Crace (Nan. A Talese, 2013), is a novel about change. Set in a remote rural village in England, during harvest season, the tale unwinds with two curls of smoke that rise up on the horizon, signaling that the villagers’ way of life is about to become unrecognizable.

Crace writes with compassion and grace. His story is beautifully told. “Harvest” is short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

Photo: Gardening Jones.

A book that tells you how to get more out of your vegetable garden harvest, written by a woman named Gardening Jones, is bound to have some good ideas. And “How to Reap the Most from What You Sow” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012) does not disappoint.

“A plant’s only goal is to reproduce,” Jones’ father told her. And Jones’ only aim is to make that plant feed us super-well along the way.

From vertical gardening, to intercropping, to cross-pollination, Jones bundles 30 years of writing and growing experience into a wonderful little advisory for any home gardener. It’s a short book, with only 46 pages, so it’s easy to reference. You can read more of Jones’ wisdom in her articles on Horticultural Magazine’s gardening blog.

Photo: Courtesy of Harvest App.

“Harvest” is an app that helps you harvest. It guides you towards the freshest healthiest, tastiest produce, at peak picking times.You can find out when your melons are the sweetest, when your avocados have yielded just enough to be the perfect balance of velvety and firm.

The app tells you what’s in season, how to tell if it’s ripe, how to store it, how cook it, and other tips.  The app also indicates the level of pesticide residue.

Photo: Courtesy of ShutterLove. Still from “10 Tips for Photographing Fall Harvest.”

If you are inspired to go out and photograph the harvest beauty you find, check out 10 Tips for Photographing Fall Harvest, by Brienne Walsh, on ShutterLove and learn how photographer Rush Jagoe got these and other gorgeous shots.

Read about the beautiful harvests all this week, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact, including Harvesting Hope, Reaping Soul.

Get busy and enter the BN Competitions, Our theme this week is Beautiful Harvest. Send in your images and ideas. Deadline is 10.06.13.