This book is written as an introduction to gardening in its wider aspects, linking it to historical, philosophical and cosmological contexts – when one takes a shovel to hand to turn the soil; life permeates it in manifold forms: cosmic cycles of sun and moon warm it, cicculate water through it lure out of it the season’s vegetation, and man shapes it according to his thinking and willing [and] according to his cultural traditions . . .  All that is gardening!