Soil to Table: The Land Gardeners

Reflecting on the link between the health of our soils and what we eat, Soil to Table is filled with ideas and wisdom about how to care for your soil and includes recipes from chef Lulu Cox.

Soil is a delicate ecosystem made up of minerals, water, air, plant roots, organic matter, insects and a complex web of micro-organisms. We rely on its health for our food and our future - just as caring for the gut flora within our intestines is vital to human wellbeing, so too is caring for the microbes in the soil the essence of soil health.

Following on from their bestselling book The Land Gardeners: Cut Flowers, authors and gardeners Bridget Elworthy and Henrietta Courtauld explore the full cycle of soil to table. From the microbes in the soil to the seasoning in your dishes, each plays an important role in contributing to a delicious and nutritious meal.

With recipes from chef Lulu Cox and paintings by Nancy Cadogan, Soil to Table is a celebration of the garden and an informative guide to cultivating healthy soil in order to produce glorious food.

About the Author

Bridget Elworthy and Henrietta Courtauld both trained and worked as lawyers before studying garden design. Henrietta went on to work with landscape and garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith and then started her own garden design business. Bridget went on to study horticulture in London before spending three years back in her native New Zealand, where she grew peonies on the family farm, Craigmore, before moving to Wardington Manor. As The Land Gardeners, both Henrietta and Bridget now specialise in the design of productive gardens - particularly walled gardens. They have combined forces to research soil health and its importance as the source of plant, animal, human and, ultimately, planetary health. They launched The Farm Project to make high-quality, microbially rich compost on a large scale, with the goal of empowering growers and farmers to do the same. Their book The Land Gardeners: Cut Flowers was published by Thames & Hudson in 2019.