Touching Earth

by Janet Lembke

In this volume of personal essays on the lure of the kitchen garden, acclaimed Southern naturalist Janet Lembke digs into the world of beans and peppers, herbs and insects, the universal linkings between gardeners, and the uniquely restorative power of touching earth.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2001

About the author

Janet Lembke (2 March 1933 - 3 September 2013), née Janet Nutt, was an American author, essayist, naturalist, translator and scholar. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio during the Great Depression, graduated in 1953 from Middlebury College, Vermont, with a degree in Classics, and her knowledge of the classical Greek and Latin worldview, from Homer to Virgil, informed her life and work. A Certified Virginia Master Gardener, she lived in Virginia and North Carolina, drawing inspiration from both locales. She was recognized for her creative view of natural cycles, agriculture and of animals, both domestic and wild, with whom we share the natural environment. Referred to as an "acclaimed Southern naturalist," she was equally (as The Chicago Tribune described her) a "classicist, a noted Oxford University Press translator of the works of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus". She received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate Virgil's Georgics, having already translated Euripides’ Electra and Hecuba, and Aeschylus’s Persians and Suppliants.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

have always enjoyed her garden lit

[Rhonda Abello · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read several of Janet Lembke's books and enjoyed all of them. They are a mix of storytelling and historical and literary anecdotes about the various topics that she writes about. In this book she talks about vegetable gardening throughout her life, with the main focus being on her garden in coastal North Carolina. Since I also lived in Havelock and worked at Cherry Point I have a soft spot for the region and was glad for a chance to revisit it in her lovely book.