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352 pages, 2000
$21.00 paper 0-87745-707-7, 978-0-87745-707-7
“[A] steamy romance of vegetable gardening.”—BookPage
“A gardener's touch [is] not required for enjoying a book that so wholeheartedly celebrates friendship, love, pets, the elements of family, academia, cooking, eating—and of course, gardening. . . . Bon appétit—and good reading.”—Smithsonian
“A lovely memoir. Beautifully written, tender, and wise.”—Gerald Stern
“The whole book could be considered as one of the most original love poems ever written.”—David Hamilton, editor of the Iowa Review
“Part Gilbert White, part Henry David Thoreau, this chronicle of an Iowa gardener's year has drawn from the heartland a calm, compassionate harvest.”—Roger B. Swain, host of PBS's Victory Garden
“Home gardeners, cooks, and nature lovers will savor this delightful account of the 1995 growing season in Iowa. . . . Delectable.”—Publishers Weekly
“A serenely informal gardener's companion. . . . Any gardener, true-blue or armchair variety, will want to settle down and read Klaus.”—Kirkus Reviews
My Vegetable Love offers a detailed daily record of gardenng, loving, and living during a single growing season—from the first outdoor planting in early spring to the final fall harvest shortly after Thanksgiving. Yet Klaus describes far more than the toils and triumphs of tending vegetables, as his observations encompass the day-to-day changes in weather and wildlife as well as the life changes in his pets, his wife, and himself. As Patricia Hampl wrote, “Beneath the simplicity of this beguiling gardener's journal lies the captivating story of good life and true love. In the spirit of M. F. K. Fisher's writing about food and drink, Carl Klaus has found in his garden a model of the enduring passions of life and death.”
Carl Klaus is professor emeritus of English and the founding director of the University of Iowa nonfiction program. A longtime gardener, he is the author of Weathering Winter: A Gardener's Daybook (Iowa, 1997) and Taking Retirement: A Beginner's Diary.
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