How to Grow Your Dinner: Without Leaving the House

by Claire Ratinon

A vegetable garden is not an option for everyone, and so container growing has become desirable for people with little outside space

Many have discovered the love of growing houseplants and want to take their skills to another level; others are inspired by the idea of growing their own food organically and sustainably. The book covers all the essentials of growing a range of edible plants in pots, and meeting each crop's specific needs.

Author Claire Ratinon brings her urban food growing expertise to this popular subject, in a book designed to appeal to new gardeners and anyone who would like to take on the rewarding challenge of growing their own dinner, even if they've only got a window box or balcony to work with.

• ISBN13: 9781786277145
• Publish Date: 27 August 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Laurence King Publishing
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 128
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

How to Grow Your Dinner Without Leaving the House is a fascinating and useful resource for container growing edible plants no matter what one's resources and space considerations. Due out 27th Aug 2020 from Laurence King Publishing, it's 128 pages and will be available in flexibound format.

I was surprised how much info I gleaned from this volume as well as how many usable bits of info were appropriate to my uses (despite having access to a large outdoor vegetable gardening area for the gardening season). The layout is accessible and logical. The introductory chapters cover some background (why grow vegetables indoors), planning (what should readers specifically grow), finding and using space efficiently, getting started, and some troubleshooting. The following chapters cover planting, transplanting seedlings into containers, maintaining plants and regular culture, troubleshooting, an herbal full of plants to grow and their specific culture requirements, and seasonal growing and space efficiency.

Full of specific advice for the challenging indoors culture of plants, this is an ideal book for people who either don't have access to more traditional growing platforms, or choose to extend the season indoors, or garden indoors year round (apartment dwellers and urban folks). A lot of the info will be useful to traditional gardeners as well who want to up their indoor gardening game. This volume is really full of interesting and useful tips and tricks. Photography and instructions are clear and easy to follow and understand. Especially important info is highlighted in text boxes in the sidebars. The book includes a cross referenced index.

Four stars. Well written and useful. Do I think that readers are going to be able to make a significant contribution to their vegetable intake? No, not really in practical terms. Do I think it's a valuable and worthwhile exercise -especially- with kids and -especially- in the current stressful climate of uncertainty with a pandemic and other social and cultural upheavals? Absolutely! Anything that gives us any semblance of control and even a small feeling of food security is invaluable.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes