Book Beat: Delightfully Unusual Fruits & Vegetables

By Kimberly Baldwin

Eminently beautiful fruits and vegetables are profiled in the charming book 75 Exciting Vegetables for Your Garden by expert gardener and garden designer Jack Staub. Discover produce you'll likely not see in your supermarket, including Asparagus Bean (a tropical cousin to the black-eyed pea), Green Zebra Tomato (a handsome yellow, amber, and deep green striped variety), Turkish Orange Eggplant (an ornamental heirloom), and many more. Staub seeks not only to infuse our backyard gardens with color and variety, but to enlighten and amuse with amiable text, surprising history, scraps of unexpected lore, and tidbits of culinary insight.

His stunning follow up, 75 Remarkable Fruits for Your Garden, provides a rich history of each plant, thoughts and tips on growing it, and ends with a simple recipe for serving up these mouth-watering fruits in salads, side dishes, breads, and desserts. Grab these books now -- it's the perfect time to start thinking about your summer garden!