Indoor Kitchen Gardening Handbook

by Elizabeth Millard

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Indoor Kitchen Gardening Handbook is a tutorial and culture guide to indoor food gardening year-round. Originally published in 2014, this second edition is due out 8th Sept 2020 from Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint, it's 192 pages and will be available in hardcover 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, planning, finding and using space efficiently, getting started, and troubleshooting. The following chapters cover microgreens, shoots, sprouts, herbs, and mushrooms (!!??). The third section covers more 'traditional' vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, etc fully grown to harvest indoors.

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. I don't have a first edition to compare with this edition, so I can't speak to the differences, changes, and/or upgrades, but 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 and a half stars. Well written and useful.

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