The Book Depository One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening by Lolo Houbein
70 ratings
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Price: £18.47
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening : Paperback : EXPERIMENT : 9781615193257 : 1615193251 : 23 Feb 2016 : Now in an expanded 2nd edition: The start-to-finish guide to growing organic produce on just three square feet--with tried-and-true advice that speaks to everyone who would like to dig into edible gardening. Now with all new plot designs and tips. Anyone (with enough land to stand on) can plant a magic-square garden and harvest their own veggies, fruits, and herbs! In One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening, Lolo Houbein, gardener extraordinaire, reveals creative techniques developed over a lifetime to coax an amazing abundance of organic produce from a plot that is just three feet square, plus: 40 plot designs with added illustrations, 10 new to this edition Tips for getting more value from popular veggies Advice on drying, freezing, and pickling for best results A new introduction: Why a 3-Foot Square? And more of her classic wisdom--If herbs wanted to be used frugally, they would also grow frugally. But they don't! Ever encouraging, often charming, and always practical, One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening has it all: how to compost, save water, troubleshoot weeds and pests, create a plant-friendly microclimate, develop a gardening attitude--and enjoy your homegrown produce!. The Book Depository One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening by Lolo Houbein - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781615193257
MPN: 1615193251
GTIN: 9781615193257
Author: Neil Swan
Rating: 5
Review: Super garden book
Author: reader
Rating: 2
Review: My garden happens to be based entirely on multiple 3'x3' beds, so I was THRILLED to find a book whose entire premise is supposed to be gardening on 3'x3' units. The book is authored by a lady who has survived a childhood in WWII Europe, and who advocates growing your own food. While I really liked the upbeat, sweet vibe of the text that reminded me of my childhood in my grandmother's garden, I found the book to be very unrealistic in it's claims. I have been veg gardening for 20 years, using the biointensive method (which means: plants spaced as closely as possible, grown in raised beds, with very deeply worked, excellent quality soil), and I find that the book's bed layouts are completely useless and misleading. The author suggests such crowding of plants that it is preposterous to expect any harvest at all! For example, in her pizza/pasta plot, the author crams not only 3 eggplants and 6 peppers into one 3'x3' square (which would already be very crowded), but also 3 tomatoes (!), 1 arugula, several red onions, one basil. In addition, all this is grown around a center filled with more onions, while chives are sprinkled around 3 of the peppers! As I have mentioned, I have gardened for 20 years, and for at least part of this time, I have been using the 3'x3' layout. I have raised tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and all the other plants mentioned above, and believe me, they can't even begin to fit into one square, all at the same time. Typically, if the weather cooperates, and you have great soil, you can just barely fit 2 tomatoes into one of those beds, and if all the stars align, then maybe 1 pepper and 1 basil in addition. And that would be pushing it! If you go ahead and plant all of those plants in one bed, you will guarantee that you will get next to no harvest, and that your plants will be so stressed by the intense competition with the others, that they will be a prime target for every pest and disease within a 10 mile radius. In another example, the author has you place 3 flowering broccolis, 6 cabbages, and 5 mini cauliflowers just in the very corners of one bed, while the center is occupied with many, many more plants. If there is one veggie that I am an expert on, it is cabbage, and I can tell you right now that even if you use miniature cabbages, you can barely fit 9 within one square, but if we follow the spacing in this book, I should be able to grow all 9 plus 5 more in just the corners, leaving the center open for many more plants. The reason why for me the spacings in this book are such a deal breaker, is that if you are an inexperienced gardener and/or rely on your garden to feed your family (and in this economy, many do), a season of growing veggies in this way can be dissapointing to the point of turning a new gardener off of gardening forever, or in a worse case scenario, it can spell a disaster to a family in need. On the whole, despite it's happy vibe, I can not recommend this book, because of it's sheer impracticality.
