Growing your own food is all the rage right now. And, rightfully so – even organic farming has become a machine these days, and the best way to know exactly what’s going on your plate is to control the entire supply chain starting with your own front, back or side yard.
Oh, and being able to garner prolific organic produce from a sliver of land would be awesome, too. To this end, The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden: Grow Tons of Organic Vegetables in Tiny Spaces and Containers by Karen Newcomb is a classic in the grow-yr-own produce world. It’s sold over half a million copies, preaching the eco-friendly gospel of growing what you can in the space you have, minimizing effort while maximizing return. Newcomb estimates a 5 x 5 foot bed planted in this manner will yield about 200 pounds of vegetables.
Postage stamp gardening’s principles are simple: start with a highly nutrient-dense planting mix to get your garden kickstarted, forget everything you knew about planting in rows and plant crops closely together to minimize weeding and wasted space, garden vertically when applicable and leverage strategies like succession cropping and intercropping to make the most of your time and space.
The newest edition of this book includes a special focus on heirloom vegetables, and how to choose them. We do love a good heirloom tomato around here, so this was particularly relevant.
If you’re considering getting started with vegetable gardening but find yourself limited on time, space and open to new ideas about strategy, this is an excellent book for getting started. Much of the discussion is even relevant to apartment and condo dwellers assembling their container gardens, so there is something here for everyone.
Learn more: The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden: Grow Tons of Organic Vegetables in Tiny Spaces and Containers by Karen Newcomb.
This book was provided to us through Blogging for Books in exchange for our honest review.
