I grew up in the country where our tradional “row garden” could not only put up preserves for a family of five for an entire year, but also supply most of our city aunts, uncles, and cousins with care packages and provide us with an income from our summer berry picking. As many rural children do, when I grew up I moved to the city but the love of gardening never left me.
More years ago than I care to admit, I was given a copy of the book “The Square Foot Gardener” for Christmas. I was tantalized by the idea of growing a garden in my postage stamp-sized yard. Over the cold winter, I read and re-read this book, preparing for the joys of spring. The essence of the square foot gardening practice is to utilize a grid pattern to grow a garden that uses only about 20% of the space of a “traditional” row garden and yet provides the same yield of produce. With the exception of a slug invasion (the book covers the remedy for that as well), the system worked admirably.
Fast forward to current date and it is time for the sequel to this book – the All New Square Foot Gardening.
The essential theories are the same but the author has added some new ideas and simplified others so that even a gardening novice should be able to achieve spectacular results. Rather than the “100-mile diet”, you can enjoy fresh produce mere steps from your backdoor with relative ease. Really, there is no excuse for anyone anywhere not being able to enjoy fresh produce. There are even suggestions for people with limited mobility.
If you are curious or serious about having fresh food that you can take pride in, this book is an excellent resource. Make sure to let us know how you make out!
