How To Grow Food: A Step-by-step Guide to Growing All Kinds of Fruits, Vegetables, Herbs, Salads and More - Hardcover

Gianfrancesco, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1554078067 ISBN 13: 9781554078066

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2011

Synopsis

A comprehensive, no-nonsense guide to kitchen gardening on any scale.

How to Grow Food is a complete illustrated guide to the hundreds of plants that are easy to grow in the home garden. The author emphasizes gardening techniques that can be applied to any size of garden, from a window box to a side yard to the biggest backyard.

This practical book features a comprehensive directory of recommended plants to suit all growing conditions in all regions. Thorough instructions and a month-by-month calendar of tasks describe how to cultivate more than 125 crops, from traditional choices to more unusual varieties. Gardeners can choose from roots and tubers; leafy crops; seed and fruit crops; grains; peppers and chilies; stem and flower crops; tree fruits; soft, bush and cane fruits; tender fruits; nuts; herbs; and edible flowers.

How to Grow Food's clear instructions and reliable advice includes the use of organic and biodynamic gardening methods. Some of the topics covered are:

• Types of gardens and choosing the best site
• Designing, preparing and planting a productive garden
• Maximizing the use of space, such as vertical planting and fruit cages
• Harvesting, storing and preserving
• Training and pruning plants for maximum yield
• Tools, pests, weeds and growing from seed
• Helpful dos and don'ts
• Plant ratings related to variety, value, maintenance and season
• The author's special selection of star plants

About this title

About the Author

Richard Gianfrancesco is a plant scientist and gardening book author. He has coordinated hundreds of garden plant tests and trials, which have been published internationally.

Reviews

Despite the beautiful, possibly intimidating, photographs of delicately germinating peas, richly-colored plums, and general bucolic abundance, this book offers thorough, practical, and accessible instruction even for those whose crops will be limited to a few hopeful pots on the stoop. While clearly intended for folks with a little land, enough time, and steady patience, Gianfrancesco makes growing real food seem plausible and appealing. Climate ranges, "value for money," and degrees of difficulty in maintenance, harvesting, and storage are all clearly charted. Advice for where to put what in the garden and what to do with the goods once you're back in the kitchen are also crystal clear. City dwellers will be heartened by the range of what's possible for them, too: lettuces, Swiss chard, beats, and cucumbers—at least according to this advice—can easily accompany the basil and rosemary already growing on the fire escape. Illus. (Feb.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554078067
• ISBN 13: 9781554078066
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256