The easiest solution is to learn how to grow and store garden produce. Piers Warren’s book How to Store Your Garden Produce is a classic, with an A to Z guide of how to store everything you grow. Piers says that you can feed a family of four for a year on less than an acre of garden, if you do it right. Learn how to make your own cider, pickle your own gherkins, string your own onions and dry your own apple rings. Also see how to make your own compost. See make your garden safe for pets, for toxic plants/mulches to avoid (and humane non-toxic alternatives to slug pellets like Grazers (a nontoxic spray) or Molluskit (invented by a worm-loving garage tinkerer).
The Super Organic Gardener is one of the first books to go beyond organic and offer veganic gardening, so no creatures are harmed (no bone meal or fish meal). You’ll also learn how to make natural fertilisers and compost, and share your plot with wildlife. A good plant-based fertiliser is Natural Grower (which also helps to deter mice and rats).
The Vegan Gardener looks at avoiding animal products and plastic, and how to reduce your garden footprint. Learn how to use local renewable sources for a self-sufficient closed loop garden, make your own compost and leaf mould and harness the power of home-grown green wood chips to inject life into your life. With over 750 photos, detailed garden plans and illustrations to guide and inspire. John Walker is an award winning gardening and environmental writer with over 40 years experience who trained at Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. He runs an eco garden in north Wales.
The Forager’s Garden is a book to grow an edible sanctuary, in your own backyard. This handy accessible guide shows how to create your own paradise plot, where you can forage throughout the year. Anna condenses years of experience to walk you through the skills and techniques you need to design and plant a useful and thriving garden, that’s also a haven for wildlife. Author Anna Lock has planted many community gardens that focus on annual vegetable production, along with fruit trees, edible hedges, allotments and permaculture forest gardens. She lives in East Sussex where is developing a small community farm.
Tiny Victory Gardens is a book for anyone whose garden is just big enough to line a windowsill. By applying selected growing practices and managing square inches rather than square feet, you’ll be able to grow a small-scale farm on your patio or in your dining room. If you have access to a patch of sun, you can grow and harvest your own food, year-round. No backyard required. This book includes tips on finding the right containers (there are wrong ones), prepping your soil, growing plants indoors and outdoors and raising crops all year long. The book focuses on 21 crops that are easy to grow including tomatoes (and a few we could not grow here as it’s an American book!) The author also shares hacks to help you cut back on watering, and how to ditch harmful pesticides and fertilisers.
No-dig gardener Charles Dowding grows everything he eats, and says you can make it work using cloches or polytunnels. His book How to Grow Winter Vegetables covers frost-hardy salad plants. Charles Dowding’s Vegetable Diary takes you through each week of the annual growing cycle, from clearing weeds and feeding soil, to sowing, harvesting and storing vegetables. Feed soil once a year, and maintain weeds through mulching & hoeing. Charles just accepts that you’ll lose some crops to wildlife – he writes that some rabbits are so tame they ‘wave through the conservatory window while they eat supper!)
Your Edible Yard is a lovely book about landscaping with fruits & vegetables. It features dozens of colour photos and watercolour planting charts. From saving seeds to food-scaping, learn permaculture principles to build soil and raised beds and integrate culinary vegetables, herbs and flowers. This is your how-to guide to turn a yard into a bountiful feast.
The Zero Waste Garden is the ultimate gardening guide to growing food with minimal waste. Ben shares over 60 unique planning-for-yield guides for key crops, to help you grow for minimum waste and maximum taste. You’ll learn how to make the most of space you have, what to grow and what you can harvest each season.
My Tiny Kitchen Garden is a book to show that you don’t need a garden to grow your own food. This perfect beginner guide has tips on how to start, what to choose and how to grow 20 types of fruits, vegetables and herbs in your kitchen. If you have limited space, this book can help you produce fresh herbs for cooking, save money on your food bill, reduce your carbon footprint and enjoy the simple pleasure of watching something grow. Bursting with tips and ideas to get you started, including:
- The basics of micro-gardening
- Troubleshooting tips
- Plant profiles to help you choose what to grow
- Craft ideas to help style your plants
- Advice on growing food from scraps
- How to save and store seeds
Whether you’re a budding gardening or a seasoned expert looking for seeds of inspiration, dive into this book to hone your green fingers and cultivate your very own tiny kitchen garden. Felicity Hart is an experiented writer and editor. When not in her study, she enjoys walking through the countryside or spending time with flowers in her garden.
Raised Bed Gardening is ideal for people with rocky or less-than-ideal soil, plus there is no weeding involved. You can use a raised bed to grow food, on a patio, deck or driveway. Learn how to select the best raised bed for your space, what to fill it with, tips for staking and trellising plants and ways to save space and improve yields. Build your own quick and simple raised beds, and learn how to mulch, water and fertilise your new garden. Find beginner crops to get you started, and get tips to grow in ways that won’t leave you feeling overwhelmed halfway through the season.
The Creative Vegetable Gardener is a book to learn 60 ways to create a bounty of food. For decades, gardeners have approached vegetable gardening the same way: planting in square or rectangular beds or straight rows, keeping vegetables separate from flowers and no mixing perennial plants with annual ones. And according to the old rules, ‘every insect is killed, the garden must be tidy and nothing should go to seed’. Many plants (and other items like cocoa mulch and slug pellets) are toxic to animal friends. Blue Cross has a good post on pet-friendly gardening. For indoor plants, don’t display overlooking gardens, to help avoid birds flying into windows.
It’s time to break the rules! Today’s gardeners are re-envisioning the vegetable garden as a creative, playful space where the beds may be circles or spirals, beneficial insects are invited to the party, flowers for cutting grow right next to annual vegetables and a bit of ‘untidiness’ simply creates a garden, that more closely mimics the natural world.
In this book, be playful and imagine a vegetable garden that offers a meditative sanctuary, as well as a source of fresh homegrown food. From seed selection to garden layout, gardeners of all levels will find this liberating advice a path to making the garden a place of nourishment for the soul, as well as feeding the body.
Kelly Smith Trimble has been a lifestyle editor for nearly 20 years. A master gardener – she grows vegetables, herbs and flowers in her suburban backyard, and loves cooking and preserving. She lives in Tennessee, USA.
My Tiny Kitchen Garden is a little book to help you grow your own herbs, fruits and vegetables, even if you don’t have any outdoor space. The perfect beginner guide to micro-gardening, it features tips on how to start, what to choose and how to grow over 20 types of plant for your kitchen. If you garden alongside pets, know that many plants (and other items like cocoa mulch and slug pellets) are toxic. Blue Cross has a good post on pet-friendly gardens. Don’t display foliage overlooking gardens, as this can confused feathered friends – removing them can help prevent birds flying into windows.
Whether you want to produce fresh herbs for your cooking, save money on your food bill or reduce your carbon footprint, this is the book for you – even if you just want the pleasure of seeing something grow. Bursting with tips, including:
- The basics of micro-gardening
- Troubleshooting tips
- Plant profiles to choose what to grow
- Ideas to help style your plants
- Advice on growing food from scraps
- How to save and store seeds
Whether you’re a budding gardening or a seasoned expert looking for seeds of inspiration, dive into this book to hone your green fingers, and cultivate your very own tiny kitchen garden.
About the Author
Felicity Hart is an experienced writer and editor. When not in her study, she enjoys walking in the countryside, and spending time with the flowers in her garden.
