Truly America's first Renaissance man, Thomas Jefferson not only greatly influenced the realms of government and architecture; his contributions to gardening and landscape design are also impressive. Monticello, his beloved home, stands as a monument to his horticultural passion and organizational genius. Hatch has been director of gardens and grounds there since 1977, and his treatise on the estate's garden history and contemporary significance is an elaborately detailed and thoroughly researched tribute to America's premier food-oriented gardener. Beginning with an extensive examination of Jefferson's structural plans and implementation strategies for Monticello's complex system of vegetable gardens, Hatch then chronicles his own lengthy effort at the helm of a vast restoration project that owes much of its success to the meticulous records Jefferson left behind. Along with providing plant profiles of the myriad vegetables cultivated there over the centuries, he also offers important insights into the arduous physical tasks involved in eighteenth-century gardening as well as Jefferson's prudent establishment of seed-saving techniques that continue to affect the marketplace. Elegantly produced and artfully augmented by stunning, evocative photographs of the estate and the bounty it produces, Hatch's homage establishes Jefferson as the clear forefather of modern organic and sustainable garden movements.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)
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