{"id":2184,"date":"2013-07-01T00:02:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T07:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/book\/book-review-42\/"},"modified":"2023-08-18T10:41:55","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T17:41:55","slug":"cool-season-gardener","status":"publish","type":"book","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/book\/cool-season-gardener\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Season Gardener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/graphix\/Cool-Season-thorness.jpg\" alt=\"Coll Season Gardener book jacket\" align=\"left\" \/><br \/>\nMost vegetable gardening books have a long, encyclopedic listing of favorite crops with a relatively short introduction to general cultural. In &#8220;Cool Season Gardener,&#8221; Bill Thorness takes a very different approach&#8211;the A-Z listing is confined to a short chapter near the end of the book. While these few pages do contain some excellent recommendations for the late summer-to-spring garden, the heart of this book focuses on the practices of vegetable growing, especially for the cooler months.<\/p>\n<p>To do this, the author invites you to change some of your basic concepts, including dividing the year into only four seasons. &#8220;Wanting to tend my garden continually throughout the year in our mild climate has made me chop up our seasons into a few &#8216;miniseasons&#8217; so I can more easily plan and plant.&#8221; Spring stretches into three parts from mid-February to mid-July. Summer is a short two-month season. Fall, in two parts (early and late), extends until Thanksgiving, while winter fills the dark months until early spring.<\/p>\n<p>This is an interesting way to revamp the calendar, but more importantly it gives structure to the planting and harvesting schedule. Sadly, it also emphasizes that short summers are a fact of maritime Pacific Northwest life. But don&#8217;t despair; the goal of this book is to help you make a success of those long, cool seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Much of this is accomplished with techniques. One whole chapter discusses simple steps for extending the growing season. The next chapter (the longest in the book) covers advanced practices&#8211;to a depth of detail not found in other veggie books. Once you&#8217;ve absorbed the theory, the appendix gives you the specifics for numerous building projects. This makes it the perfect book for a handy-with-construction gardener&#8211;or perhaps the partnership of a handyperson and a gardener.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike some do-it-yourself books, Thorness keeps everything upbeat and sprinkled with practicality and humor&#8211;and always with options depending on your skills and resources. &#8220;My brain agitates crazily like an old washing machine when I walk through the secondhand stores. Sometimes I take home a box of treasures; other times I leave with just ideas.&#8221; You will leave with a treasure of ideas from this book.<\/p>\n<p>Excerpted from the Summer 2013 <em>Arboretum Bulletin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most vegetable gardening books have a long, encyclopedic listing of favorite crops with a relatively short introduction to general cultural. In &#8220;Cool Season Gardener,&#8221; Bill Thorness takes a very different approach&#8211;the A-Z listing is confined to a short chapter near the end of the book. While these few pages do contain some excellent recommendations for the late summer-to-spring garden, the heart of this book focuses on the practices of vegetable growing, especially for the cooler months. To do this, the&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/book\/cool-season-gardener\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cool Season Gardener<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","keyword":[22],"class_list":["post-2184","book","type-book","status-publish","hentry","keyword-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/2184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/book"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=2184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}