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    The Starter Garden Handbook: A Cook's Guide to Growing Your Own Food
    The Starter Garden Handbook: A Cook's Guide to Growing Your Own Food
    The Starter Garden Handbook: A Cook's Guide to Growing Your Own Food
    Ebook191 pages2 hours

    The Starter Garden Handbook: A Cook's Guide to Growing Your Own Food

    By Alice Mary Alvrez

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    About this ebook

    How to grow vegetables

    Reduce your food budget, eat organic and be eco-friendly: Here in one pretty package is everything you need to know to have your garden and eat it, too! Inside, you'll find tips for greening up all areas of your garden. Learn surprising facts about your impact on the environment and change your habits with do-it-yourself ideas in The Starter Garden Handbook.

    The Starter Garden Handbook: Start with small changes, like growing basic herbs, and work your way up to raising bees. Learn how to rise many kinds of vegetables and fruits, and get tips on composting weeds, clippings and leftovers so you have nutrient-rich soil. Whether you are at the green rookie level, eco-master or full-on gardening guru, you can learn to grow your own food and help the planet every week of the year with The Starter Garden Handbook.

    If you're a fan of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, you'll love The Starter Garden Handbook

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMango
    Release dateMay 19, 2018
    ISBN9781633536609
    The Starter Garden Handbook: A Cook's Guide to Growing Your Own Food
    Author

    Alice Mary Alvrez

    Alice Mary Alvrez became a vegan ten years ago after a major health crisis and completely turned her life around. A women's studies teacher, she is also a dedicated gardener, cook and blogger. Alice is on a mission to help more people take charge of their own health through healthy eating. She lives with her family of five in Portland. Oregon

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      Book preview

      The Starter Garden Handbook - Alice Mary Alvrez

      Copyright © 2018 Alice Mary Alvrez.

      Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

      Cover and Layout Design: Elina Diaz

      Mango is an active supporter of authors’ rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.

      Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the author’s intellectual property. Please honor the author’s work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our author’s rights.

      For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:

      Mango Publishing Group

      2850 Douglas Road, 3rd Floor

      Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

      info@mango.bz

      For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at sales@mango.bz. For trade and wholesale sales, please contact Ingram Publisher Services at customer.service@ingramcontent.com or +1.800.509.4887.

      The Starter Garden Handbook: A Cook’s Guide to Growing Your Own Food

      Library of Congress Cataloging

      ISBN: (print) 978-1-63353-660-9 (ebook) 978-1-63353-661-6

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963042

      BISAC category code: CKB086000 COOKING / Vegetarian, GAR000000

      GARDENING / General, GAR009000 GARDENING / Herbs, GAR016000

      GARDENING / Organic, GAR025000 GARDENING / Vegetables,

      HOM022000 HOUSE & HOME / Sustainable Living

      Printed in the United States of America

      My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.

      —Claude Monet

      Contents

      Foreword

      Level 1: Digging In

      Take Lots of Notes

      Watch Your Frost Dates

      Start with Herbs

      Perennials vs. Annuals

      North vs. South

      Windowsill Gardening

      Gardening Toolbox

      Get a Water Barrel

      Watering the Right Way

      Mulch

      Start Composting

      Grow What You Eat

      Thin Out the Seedlings

      Get to Know the Good Bugs

      Natural Pesticides

      Level 2: Gone to Seed

      Starting Seeds Indoors

      Apartment Gardening

      Container Gardening

      Vertical Gardening

      The Art of Transplanting

      Testing Your Soil

      Support Your Plants

      Level 3: Green Thumb

      Natural Fertilizers

      Heirloom vs. Hybrid

      Row or Not to Row

      Rotate Your Crops

      Successive Sowing

      Get International

      Adding Shade

      Edible Flowers

      Think of the Bees

      Dealing with Animal Pests

      Get Kids Involved

      Saving Seeds

      Level 4: Garden Pro

      Get Started in the Fall

      Cold Frames

      Raise Up Your Beds

      Preserving Your Harvest

      Using Row Covers

      Pruning and Cutting Back

      Use Your Greywater

      Microgreens and Sprouting

      Companion Planting

      Get Cooking

      Level 5: Frequent Farmer

      Growing Mushrooms

      Growing Grains

      Getting into Trees

      Get Into Grafting

      Harvesting

      Sell Your Surplus

      Think About Chickens

      Bonus

      Further Reading

      Foreword

      Gardening is the Key to Happiness

      Lawns are very high maintenance and unless constantly mowed and manicured, can greatly reduce your curb appeal. Besides wasting water and taking up a lot of time, grass in your yard doesn’t offer you anything back for all the demands on your time and pocketbook. They also tempt many lawn keepers to use chemicals which are bad for all of us, especially the birds and the bees. Get creative and go at least a little wild. My next door neighbor overturned and tilled their front lawn and planted potatoes, beets, asparagus and squash. They love going into the front yard and harvesting fresh veggies for their daily meals. The squash and pumpkins actually have beautiful foliage and the flowers are stunning and edible, as well. Last year, one of their crops grew to Giant Pumpkin size and it became the talk of the neighborhood as we watched it grow and grow. Needless to say, they had the best jack-o-lantern on the block and some fantastic pies to boot. I am heartened to see the new gardening philosophy of growing veggies, roots stocks, herbs and berries right beside the roses and lilies. It is gorgeous and supports the bee populations to whom we owe so much.

      Gardening, even it is a hanging basket of cherry tomatoes and a windowsill filled with herb pots, is a much more human way to live, grounded in nature and connected to Mother Earth who provides all. It will definitely add pleasure to your life and a sense of calm. When I feel stressed, I go out back and do some weeding. It is my therapy and I can immediately see the profit of my labors. The bigger my compost piles grows with weeds, the happier I am. I intend the same for you. With your garden, you are quite literally growing a bounty of blessings.

      Have Your Garden and Eat It, Too!

      What veggies do you love? What are your favorite salad greens? The first rule is to plant what you will actually eat and feel proud to serve to guests. Take your book of shadows and list your preferred herbs, greens, vegetables including root vegetables, fruit, and herbs. Now, strike out anything you can buy really cheaply—no sense in using valuable space to for something easily available at a lower cost than it is to grow. Another caution, check out your sold type. Carrots need deep, rich soil to grow well. If your lot is shallow and sandy soil, cross carrots off your list and look to surface crops like potatoes and beets instead.

      Easy Peasy Peas and Veggies:

      Here are the vegetables anyone can grow, from beginners to pros with their own greenhouses:

      Lettuce, peas, onion, beets, potatoes, beans and radishes.

      Lettuce leaves for your salads are the easiest edible crop to grow. A few varieties will be ready to harvest in weeks! Choose a seed mix that will give you a variety of leaves for different tastes, colors and textures. For best results, sow in stages so you don’t get loads all at once. Sow a couple of lanes every few weeks throughout the summer to ensure a continuous supply.

      Once you are a pro with lettuce, grow spinach and rocket for your salad bowl.

      Peas are a trouble-free crop that can handle cooler weather so you can skip the step of starting the seedlings indoors. Simply sow the seeds in the ground from March onwards and watch them thrive. The plants will need support—put in stakes or chicken wire attached to posts and occasionally wind the stems around as they grow.

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