Tag: Books

Natural Landscaping

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I read this book ages ago. It’s not too bad. Maybe more emphasis on using native plants, and avoiding invasive plants would be helpful. The only bad thing was I took forever to read it and had to turn it into my library before I really wanted to. It does have a great section on meadow gardens, and lots of great step by step instructions. For instance, the meadow garden goes something like this (as a horrible paraphrase, because the book is at the library):

  • Get rid of whatever is in the spot you want to put your meadow.
  • Let all the weeds sprout, and get rid of them.
  • Wait a few weeks and get rid of all the weeds again.
  • Seed in the stuff you want for a meadow.
  • Weed some more.
  • Mow to about six inches high in late winter.
  • Add/modify plants as needed.
She takes a realistic view on things, because she’s done it. So a meadow isn’t presented as a maintenance free wonderland. There’s obvious advice, like leaving water out for birds, but also less often thought of advice like planting a ‘dead’ tree for shelter. Natural landscaping is a different way to garden, and it is presented very nicely in this book. It’s also a timely read, due to the desire to reduce lawn usage and garden more sustainably.

The Snow Came

I watered my houseplants today. That’s all the gardening I am going to do. It is cold outside. And it snowed. I will only go outside with small toddler to play, if we are both getting restless. Hence, the leaves are probably not going to get cleaned off my garden beds. That reminds me of several posts over at north cost gardening about whether or not you should remove leaves from gardening beds. Laziness, or a lack of desire to do anything substantial in the cold right now, is answering the question for me.

Winter is wonderful. No gardening chores to worry about. It’s just time to relax and make big plans for next year. I did start up a new site, somewhere to post a bunch of stuff I’ve written, or want to. It doesn’t have a lot up now, but I’m going to add to it gradually.

‘You Grow Girl’ Book Review

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I picked this book up at the library while I was browsing the gardening section. I had come upon Gayla Trail’s website before but didn’t really find much to interest me. I wondered if the book would be worth a read. I checked it out anyway, and ended up nearly reading it cover to cover.

It’s not a book I want to own, but it did make me think about how I garden. I was right in the intended audience: young, female, with a small space to garden in and a desire to grow food. The book focused on various crafts and creative ideas more than actual gardening knowledge, which is probably why I read it. I have garden knowledge, but I’m not especially crafty. I began to think of cool ideas I could incorporate into my own small garden, and now have a strong desire to make a gardening apron (in groovy colors of course).

It’s also not a bad beginning gardening book either. I skipped over a lot of the more simple stuff, and it is definitely opinion based (rather than objective, scientific). Not a bad read if you want some creative ideas for your small garden. And the book is quite pretty.

The $64 Tomato

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The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden

I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while, and I finally got around to it. I found it absolutely delightful. It’s not a how-to-garden kind of book, but rather a memoir about the author’s experience with his kitchen garden. Any garden advice you do glean from it isn’t bad–he’s done his research–and in some ways I find it more useful to see what someone has done, rather than have someone tell me how to do things.

Does the tomato really cost $64? So, he itemizes his garden expenses, subtracts the value of the other produce based on produce stand prices, and assigns the reaming value to his brandywine tomatoes. If you didn’t need an electric fence for deer, the value would go down tremendously.

Book Review: Temple Square Gardening

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Temple Square Gardening

I read this book a while ago, and really quite enjoyed it.

I’ll give a little bit of background behind Temple Square. It’s in the center of Salt Lake City, and refers to the area surrounding the Salt Lake Temple belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Most of the gardens are roof top gardens and raised bed areas. They are most known for their annual flower beds. This book is the best that I know of to learn more about annual flower bed design. No longer do you have to place annual flowers randomly in a bed–they have a simple method to make beds look spectacular.

The method first involves the use of a skeleton, taller plants that follow a curve. Next are the accent plants that flesh out the design curve, these are less upright, but still prominent annuals. The bed is then filled with lower ground cover type plants. Finnally, sparkle plants can add a little extra interest.

If you love annual flower beds, or need more information on raised gardens, this is a great book to turn to.