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The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for a Perfect Garden. By William Alexander. Algonquin, 288 pp., $22.95.
The Fragrance of God. By Vigen Guroian. Eerdmans, 144 pp., $13.00 paperback.
The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic Americans. By Patricia Klindienst. Beacon, 280 pp., $26.95.
"USUALLY WHEN I pull a hook on gardening down down from a shelf, I would like to know why peas did not come up well this scar and what to do about the worms that cat holes in carrots. The authors of these hooks are not out to solve my gardening problems. Instead they consider background issues, each author in a different way. The first book appears to have been written for entertainment, the second for inspiration and the third as social history.
Of the three writers, William Alexander shares the most about himsell. We learn about his childhood, his family life, his sex life, the trials of finding a house in the conntry and the endless difficulties of locating reliable help in order to develop a garden. He is the quintessential innocent in the wilderness, just barely finding his way.
He is also a good record keeper. The price of his tomato is based on a tally of money spent on the garden. Among the costs are $300 for design, $8,500 for the initial construction, and $1,200 for steel edging. "Not counting thousands of dollars of my labor thrown in for free, or yearly expenditures...