The Martha Stewart Gardening Collection - Martha's Spring Garden

Whether they're potting their first plant or maintaining acres of landscaped gardens, Martha offers consumers her finest techniques to help create the garden of their dreams. Learn the basics of garden design, planting from seed, and preparing potting mix at home. Follow Martha indoors and learn how to cook fabulous dishes using ingredients fresh from the garden. And watch as Martha demonstrates her best tips and techniques for maintaining the garden and its tools. It's an indispensable collection of valuable pointers organized on two easy-to-navigate discs that will be useful all year long. Martha's Spring Gardening is a practical video reference guide to spring gardening filled with inspirational footage of Martha Stewart's Westport, Connecticut gardens and 374-minutes of solid garden expertise. Offering tidbits of history and helpful hints every step of the way, Martha Stewart accomplishes every imaginable garden task with ease. She begins with a look at early season weeding, bed preparation, seed starting, self-sowing annuals, and planting everything from primroses to vegetables and herb gardens. Readily admitting that the optimum garden layout is a very personal vision that continually evolves, Martha shares some of her favorite plants and garden planning tips. Once her vegetable and herb gardens are planted, Martha heads to the kitchen to detail the preparation of dishes like fresh asparagus and fontina bruchetta, mache salad, rhubarb crisp, and an impressive spring garden cake decorated with marzipan vegetables. After touring famous gardens like the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Keukenhof Bulb Garden in Holland, Martha and several leading garden experts delve into some of the less glamorous aspects of gardening. They offer recipes for five basic types of potting soils; take an in-depth look at pruning tools, rakes, and other gardening tools and how to care for them; describe how to choose and care for clay pots; test soil; and even tune up a lawnmower. Martha and her crew also focus in on houseplants, discussing re-potting, choosing and caring for fragrant and unusual houseplants, container gardening, creating indoor parterres, transporting plants, and the art of flower arranging. Bonus features include more helpful tips and techniques and additional video of garden tours. This excellent spring gardening guide details exactly what needs to be done in the springtime garden and clearly demonstrates how to accomplish each task. --Tami Horiuchi