Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard is a handy beginner’s guide from the co-founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Co. It covers how to plan and build a garden and gives detailed plant profiles to help you know when and how to plant, fertilize and harvest your edibles. It also includes some useful reference tables for succession planting, crop spacing, planting dates, and when to fertilize.

If you want to maximize your yield (and who doesn’t), check out How to grow more vegetables : (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine. This book, now in it’s 8th edition, describes the “GROW BIOINTENSIVE” method of horticulture. It provides detailed information on building healthy soil and using companion planting to create a “mini-ecosystem.” Resources include planning charts, sample garden plans, and simple instructions for building your own tools.

If all you have is a balcony, you can still grow your own vegetables this summer. The Edible Balcony:  Growing Fresh Produce in Small Spaces is chock-full of ideas for how to grow edible plants in small spaces and includes many fun projects for using recycled materials to create pots and plant supports.

In addition to our many reference books at the Miller Library, we have an extensive Gardening Answers Database of responses compiled from questions to our Plant Answer Line. You can browse the database or ask your own question! We were just browsing the database and found this question about gardening in limited sun, a problem that many of us have here in the Pacific Northwest. The response includes a list of suggested plants to grown, even if your sunlight is limited to just a few months out of the year.

Recent work from this series will be on exhibit in the Miller Library July 2 through August 30th.

Scent in the Islamic Garden:  A Study of Literary Sources in Persian and Urdu brings together the disciplines of medicine, horticulture, and poetry in seventeenth-century Islamic India. Focused specifically on the Deccan region of India the book is illustrated with maps and photographs of the region and includes an extensive appendix of scented plants of the region.

From the Hands of a Weaver:  Olympic Peninsula Basketry Through Time is a collection of essays written by Native people and academics about the art of basket making among the peninsula’s Native peoples. It covers the history of Olympic Peninsula basket making from ancient times to present, and includes more than 120 photographs and line drawings of the weavers and their baskets.

Come check out the latest books at the Miller Library. You never know what you might find!

Public reception: Friday, May 17. 5:00 – 7:00pm.

UWBG student posters will be on exhibit in the Miller Library. Topics include environmental horticulture, conservation biology, restoration ecology and much more.

The exhibit runs April 5 through May 4th.

Artwork, prints and cards will be for sale throughout the month, with a portion of the sales benefiting the Library.

The PNBA group is a chapter of the American Society of Botanical Artists, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting public awareness of contemporary botanical art, to honoring its traditions and to furthering its development.

All books left over from Saturday’s Garden Lovers’ Book Sale are now 80% off or free! All books that were $1 are now free, $5 books are now $1, $10 books are now $2 and $15 books are now $3! Stop by the Miller Library before 7pm on Wednesday, April 10 to take advantage of the fantastic deals!

The 8th annual Garden Lovers’ Book Sale is on April 5th & 6th. Wine and cheese preview party and book sale 5-8pm on April 5th. Advance tickets $20 (206-543-0415).

Book sale on April 6th, 9am – 3pm. Free Admission!

Special this year: HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of AMAZING gardening and cook books from the estate of Betsy Fitzgerald.

Come get your early blooming plants at the Northwest Horticultural Society Spring Plant Sale. This annual event features dozens of vendors and lectures by gardening experts, including Dan Hinkley. The sale is free, but tickets for the lectures cost $5.00 Proceeds benefit the Miller Library.

Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st St, Seattle, WA 98195

Join us for an artist reception on Friday, March 8th from 5 to 7PM.

Bazaz creates art pieces from a process she has developed using crushed glass with copper wire and small glass bits embedded in layers of glass.  She begins by drawing in her North Seattle garden and then takes the drawings to her glass studio to interpret them into glass.

The work shown at Miller Library is a new body of work inspired by botanical drawings started in 2012 in her home garden and the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

Bazaz’s artwork will be on display at the Miller Library from February 2 – 27. Join us for an artist reception February 7th from 5-7pm.

 

This month we are featuring urban farming books in the display case at the Miller Library. Come take a look!