Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Small Plot, Big Harvest

9780756690557HSmall Plot, Big Harvest – a step-by-step guide to growing fruits & vegetables in small spaces
Written by Lucy Halsall
Published at DK Canada

About the book

Aimed at both urban and suburban gardeners with small plots, who want to be part of the grow-your-own phenomenon, Small Plot, Big Harvest celebrates what the vast majority of people have — a little bit of patio or garden that is precious to them.

With at-a-glance crop planners, step-by-step gardening techniques — such as preparing soil, sowing, planting, watering, feeding, and growing under cover — and instructions and charts showing when to sow and when to harvest, Small Plot, Big Harvest brings foolproof vegetable growing for gardeners with little space.

My Thoughts

Spring is here and with it many are thinking about gardening – including yours truly.   For the last couple of  years, every spring season we think of starting a garden but because of various things happening, it never happened so far.   This year I decided that it was time that I gear myself with practical books to read and prepare myself mentally to potentially have a garden.    Knowing that our space is limited, I also want to have a maximized gardening experience.    So I was very happy to see the book Small Plot, Big Harvest on the DK Canada Spring catalogue because I knew that it was an answer to our questions.

The book has five sections to help you to garden in a small area – Your Growing Space, Planning Your Plot, Grow Your Own Vegetables, Grow Your Own Fruit and Problem Solver.

In Your Growing Space you will get a small introduction on how it is possible to have crops in small spaces, get a quick lesson on which tools are essential and learn how to select a pot, prepare the soil and start early.   I am particularly interested in the raise beds pages for our backyard.

In the Planning Your Plot section, you will learn how to plan a 3’ x 3’ plot and the different ways your can plant in that space.  Three strong suggestions are also offered complete with list of vegetables/fruits you can have in each of them – the easy-to-grow plot, the family plot and the gourmet plot.    Each of them looks amazingly yummy and very productive too!

In the following two sections, you will get an introduction on how to care and grow a variety of vegetables and fruits.   With step-by-step instructions and guidance on how to care for each plant, you can be certain to harvest plenty of yummy produce at the end of the season.   I am particularly interested in the annual and perennial herbs for now but I have plenty to read and learn for the future.  

Finally in the Problem Solver section, you will learn how to approach the weeds, pets and diseases on an organic way.   This section also contains plenty of pictures of the various problems you can encounter while gardening which is fabulous because you can see exactly how it can affect your crop.

Essentially, I think this book is perfect for any kind of gardener especially the one who doesn’t have a lot of space to do it.    If you are looking into gardening with raised bed, small plots and even containers, this book will be a blessing for you.     I am glad I had the opportunity of reviewing it because now I am a bit more self-confident in experimenting container gardening and small plots in our backyard.  

Small Plot, Big Harvest is available at your favourite bookstore, even amazon.ca.

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.

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