Just how productive can one small vegetable garden be? More productive than one might think! Colin McCrate and Brad Halm, former CSA growers and current owners of the Seattle Urban Farm Company, help readers boost their garden productivity by teaching them how to plan carefully, maximise production in every bed, get the most out of every plant, scale up systems to maximise efficiency, and expand the harvest season with succession planting, intercropping, and season extension. Along with chapters devoted to the Five Tenets of a Productive Gardener (Plan Well to Get the Most from Your Garden; Maximize Production in Each Bed; Get the Most out of Every Plant; Scale up Tools and Systems for Efficiency; and Expand and Extend the Harvest), the book contains interactive tools that home gardeners can use to assist them in determining how, when, and what to plant; evaluating crop health; and planning and storing the harvest. For today's vegetable gardeners who want to grow as much of their own food as possible, this guide offers expert advice and strategies for cultivating a garden that supplies what they need. AUTHORS: Colin McCrate is an experienced CSA farmer and, together with co-author Brad Halm, founder of The Seattle Urban Farm Company, a business that designs, builds, and maintains edible gardens. The work of McCrate and Halm has won gold and silver awards at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show and has been profiled in a wide range of media outlets, including GQ, Sunset, Newsweek, Outside magazine, Grist.org, Slate.com, and The Daily Candy. They co-authored High-Yield Vegetable Gardening, and teach community classes and urban farming workshops in Seattle. Brad Halm is an experienced CSA farmer and, together with co-author Colin McCrate, founder of The Seattle Urban Farm Company, a business that designs, builds, and maintains edible gardens. The work of Halm and McCrate has won gold and silver awards at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show and has been profiled in a wide range of media outlets, including GQ, Sunset, Newsweek, Outside magazine, Grist.org, Slate.com, and The Daily Candy. They co-authored High-Yield Vegetable Gardening, and teach community classes and urban farming workshops in Seattle.
Grow More Food is a tutorial and technique guide to maximizing yields for vegetable gardeners no matter what size garden they have. Due out 1st Feb 2022 from Storey, it's 304 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
This is such a well written and understandable guide to choosing the right varieties, planning for the seasons, succession plantings, and most of all maximizing production. The layout is logical and easy to follow and so much of what the authors say is so sensible. The chapters cover planning and record keeping, soil building, choosing the right varieties for the intended purpose (including a good subsection on hand pollination for max yields), setup propagation & irrigation, season extenders & storage.
The authors write knowledgeably and authoritatively. The chapters flow well into one another and I found it unnecessary to constantly flip back and forth, which was appreciated. The book is beautifully illustrated and photographed throughout. This book is full of lists, charts, worksheets, and notes for readers to customize and use in their unique situations. The authors do a good job of giving general advice which readers can pick and adjust. They've included a brief but useful resource list (aimed at readers in the USA/North America, but also usable by readers outside NA), as well as a short metric conversion chart and cross referenced index (not available in the pre-release ARC provided for review).
Five stars. This is a solidly reliable and beautiful guide which will certainly become a classic. I would recommend this one for public and school library acquisition, gardening and maker's groups, community garden/allotment libraries, or possibly as a nice gift for a young gardener bundled with some seeds and supplies and the promise of a few hours of help/mentoring. Many of the worksheets and charts will also be useful for smallholders and self-sufficiency gardeners.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
