Garden Tools: tips, resources and reviews for gardeners

Patio Produce by Paul Peacock

Reviewed by Jessica Moskowitz, library volunteer

As a first time vegetable gardener, I was looking for a resource for planting and growing vegetables from a small space: my deck. This handy book, Patio Produce: How to Cultivate a Lot of Home-Grown Vegetables from the Smallest Possible Space by Paul Peacock really helped me start my garden. It simply showed me how to make the most out of my pots and how to plan for a reasonable crop yield. I especially enjoyed the chapters on how to grow vegetables on the patio. The author has an A-Z plant list and inside there are detailed step-by-step instructions on how to grow on the patio, including an “at a glance” table that contains helpful information on the plant’s pot size, sowing dates, care, and harvest information. The short but thorough snippets on specific plants, such as raspberries, strawberries, potatoes, and tomatoes helped me understand how to plant and take care of my crops.

In contrast, the book Vertical Vegetables and Fruit: Creative Gardening Techniques for Growing Up in Small Spaces by Pacific Northwest author Rhonda Massingham Hart is a complete book about growing produce vertically. The book explores the possibilities of popular garden food crops that climb, ramble, and twine toward the sun. There are fun ideas inside, such as: "Climbing the Walls," "Using Unusual Containers," "Finding Room on Fences," "Crashing in Corners," and "Just Hanging Out." Not only is this a how-to book on growing upwards, but it is also a book of outdoor vegetable growing projects that make the most of materials, from traditional techniques to unusual tricks. Parts two and three of the book contain information on “Vertical Annual Vines” and “Fine Perennial Fruits.” The book also contains a handy resource guide for gardeners including lots of helpful websites.

American Grown by Michelle Obama. Crown Publishers, 2012.

First Lady Michelle Obama's new book, American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America (Crown Publishers, 2012) has much to say about gardening as a learning process. A novice gardener, she doesn't hesitate to admit that not all of the Kitchen Garden efforts succeeded on the first try: there were raised berms that succumbed to foot traffic and were replaced with untreated wooden boxes, troubles with cutworms, and trials and tribulations with pumpkins. But her motivation to create a food garden on the South Lawn with the participation of numerous horticulturists, chefs, and schoolchildren, has resulted in a beautiful, productive example for every aspiring urban farmer (even someone without a staff of dozens or a large growing space!). For readers who want to cultivate a closer relationship to the source of the food we eat (either by growing our own or by supporting small farms), this book is a good starting point. The book, which opens with a brief history of gardens at the White House, is arranged by season, and includes plans, descriptions of techniques and hands-on growing experiences, and recipes. Various experts on the garden staff contribute parts of the text. Seattle makes two appearances in the section on "How Our Gardens Grow Stronger Communities," with a page on Picardo Farm P-Patch, and a historic photo of Pike Place Market. The book ends with a resource list and bibliography.

If you are curious about the source of initial hesitation/opposition to the first White House beehive ever, here's a hint: the beehive is sited not far from the basketball court…

Reviewed by Plant Answer Line librarian Rebecca Alexander