Saturday, January 10, 2009

My Best Gardening for Beginners/Dummies Book

One Magic Square: Food Plot Designs for All Seasons in Temperate Climates

My mother, bless her, got me this book for christmas because I was moaning that I only had a pathetic little square metre to grow my veges in. I felt like I couldn't do much with it. But this books changes that! I love it so much because it makes me believe I can be a gardener all year round growing heaps of food. I seriously take it to bed and read it to get all inspired for more digging and more planting. I've read it 3 or 4 times now! Best gardening book ever!

It starts you off with a 1 metre square plot (so easy!). You start by planting fast growing salad stuff and while that gets you going you've got a bit of time to flick through all the other parts of the book and plan your next move.

Plots are sorted by type and season, e.g there is the autumn winter stir fry fry plot, the summer stir fry plot, the pick and come again plot and my favourite, the summer Aztec plot. You grow corn, then you then grow beans up the corn and all the while have squash growing along the ground keeping the roots cool, stopping the earth from drying out.

Its got lots of advice on how to condition the soil, how to compost and look out for pests. Written in a grandmotherly way (giving advice to her adult grandchildren on gardening perhaps?) its a light read with no blah blah jargon, it does use a few acronyms but they are explained to you in the first few pages.

The book was written for Australia but I believe it would work well for any warmer part of NZ. Highly recommended its the best gardening book for beginners I've ever read!

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