Product Description

"The most soul-satisfying gardening book in years." -- New York Times (March 1982, reviewing the 1981 cloth edition from IU Press).

"Genuinely a classic..." -- Los Angeles Times (on the occasion of Houghton Mifflin's paperback edition, which came out in 1994).

"Is there anyone alive with the slightest interest in gardening who doesn't know that Henry Mitchell is one of the funniest and most truthful garden columnists we've got?" -- Allen Lacy

"Mitchell is a joy to read. He has tried and failed, persevered and triumphed, and he has many sound recommendations for us fumblers and failures." -- Celestine Sibley, in the Atlanta Constitution.

"Henry Mitchell is one of America's most entertaining and enlightening garden writers.... 'Garden writer' fails, in truth, to describe this man. He gardens and he writes -- the former, if we take him at his word, with lust and loathing, foolhardiness and finesse; the latter with gentle irony and consummate skill." -- Pacific Horticulture

"Mitchell mixes practical advice, encouragement, philosophic consolation and wit. He is the neighbor you wish you could talk to over the back fence." -- House and Garden

Henry Mitchell was to gardening what Izaak Walton was to fishing. The Essential Earthman is a collection of the best of his long-running column for the Washington Post. Although he offered invaluable tips for novice as well as seasoned gardeners, at the heart of his essays were piquant observations: on keeping records; the role of trees in gardens (they don't belong there); how a gardener should weather the winter; on shrubs, bulbs, and fragrant flowers -- and about observation itself. Here's one example: Marigolds gain enormously in impact when used as sparingly as ultimatums. Henry Mitchell came to his subject with reverence, passion, humor, and a contagious enthusiasm tempered only by his sober knowledge of human frailty. The Essential Earthman is for all who love gardening -- even those who only dream of doing it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #287668 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.com Review
This first collection of Henry Mitchell's garden columns was one of those instant classics, a book which quickly earned a permanent place on thousands of bedside tables. Though written for the Washington Post, these tales of the city garden travel well. This book, often dog-eared and battered, is found in gardeners' homes all across the U.S.--not just in the South, but in Minnesota, Alaska, and the other Washington. After reading a single page--any page--you'll realize why. Many gardeners quote Mitchell's line, "It is a great joy the day we discover that we can learn things without actually having to make the mistakes ourselves." He regales us with his mistakes, recording the frustration caused by stubbornly planting where his beloved dogs insisted on sleeping or by thoughtless activity ("I speared a superb lily bulb today"), hoping we will profit from his own gardening mishaps. We can and do, but we profit just as much by his company as his advice, which is so clearly the fruit of long and direct experience.

From Booklist
With Henry Mitchell's recent death, gardeners lost one of the most erudite yet entertaining voices of horticultural wisdom. This agreeable iconoclast will no longer be around to tease and provoke his fans--those readers devoted to Mitchell's splendid gardening essays in the Washington Post. So his prevailing legacy will be books like this one, a new, slightly expanded edition of Mitchell's first collection of columns. In reading over these delectable gardening vignettes, the reader finds reasons for Mitchell's popularity unmistakable. Not only does he instruct readers with his expert advice, but in his own rather cantankerous way, he consistently provides a gentle, philosophical assist; a balm for the bumps and blows of daily life. Alice Joyce

Review

"... an idiosyncratic, down-to-earth journal of the travails and rewards of gardening for one's own pleasure, not for status or competition. It's funny and real; a classic for the gardener's library." -- Austin American Statesman

Customer Reviews

please reprint this book!
I first read Henry Mitchell in the Washington Post when my husband was receiving cancer treatment at NIH in 1982, and when I realized that his columns were collected in The Essential Earthman I immediately bought a copy. I have subsequently owned (and loaned out and thus lost) two or three more copies. As each planting season arrives I remember how much I've missed reading Henry's wisdom, and I berate myself for having loaned out (and lost) those books. So for the sake of upcoming generations of gardeners (and the old hands among us), would someone please reprint this valuable book? It's a book to read in the depth of winter and the heat of summer, in a spacious country garden or a tiny city yard, for beginning gardeners and old timers with permanently-stained hands. There never has been anyone quite like Henry Mitchell on gardening, or on life, for that matter. Grouchy, opinionated, funny, informative, brutally honest--his words will never go out of style.

One of the 3 best American garden writers
As a gardener sufficiently serious about it to prefer catalogs without pictures, I commend Mr. Mitchell's essays to anyone -- seedling or mighty oak -- who loves to put their hands in dirt, and needs someone to lyrically explain why. My favorite essays include: dogs in the garden, why $ spent on garden plants are toted up differently than other money spent, and why, no matter how long you garden, you are never done until you are dead

Worth a second try
I bought this book a few years ago based on the reviews. When I got it I tore into it and was sorely disappointed. That's the reason for 4 instead of 5 stars.

Why even 4 stars you ask? Well, about a month ago, for whatever reason, I picked it up again and now I LOVE IT!

Henry Mitchell is dry - like the soil under an oak. But he's terribly warm and fuzzy once you get to know him. I write a newsletter for my local garden club and have found quote after quote that I want to use for future issues. They're not la-dee-dah quotes that speak vaguely about the lovely joys of gardening. BLAH! Rather, they're jewels that point fingers at snobby gardeners and kill-joys who scold children for picking crocuses.

This is not a "pretty picture" book. It's sort of a how-to in an essay form. But more than that, it's great writing by a wonderful author on a topic I am crazy for.