If you read enough gardening books, you’ll pull out a few tips or tricks. But they often contain a lot of techniques developed in the author’s own yard, which may or may not be useful to you.
I am as guilty of this as anyone in my gardening columns, but I do try to point out that what works in my particular micro-climate and soil profile may not work for you.
What I really like to find in a gardening book is well-reasoned, evidence-based advice on how to do particular things and the physical requirements of plants that I want to grow (or tried to grow and failed for reasons that are not yet obvious to me).
The best book for food gardeners in southwestern B.C. is Steve Solomon’s Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. He has since moved to Tasmania, so the book in all likelihood will not be updated again.
But I have been thumbing through a more recent text, Gardening for Geeks, which appeals to me because it is so instructive.
The author Christy Wilhelmi lives in Los Angeles and like all California-based gardening writers, she undoubtedly has unique challenges of her own. Ordinarily that makes their books useless to British Columbians. But not so for Wilhelmi.
Her advice about arranging crops from shortest to tallest, south to north to take advantage of the sun’s rays works no matter what the latitude. She includes the important exception for tender lettuce in the heat of summer: plant lettuces to the north of taller plants or trellised vines to protect them from full sun.
Measurements and sketches will guide you to soundly designed garden boxes, raised beds, paths and simple garden structures such as tomato cages. Instructions for building a hot compost heap and a worm box are easy to follow.
Wilhelmi zips through basic introductions to double-digging, biodynamic growing and French intensive agriculture – just enough so that you will know whether or not to seek out more detailed instruction.
I also like that she gives good basic information about how to plant and grow a couple of dozen common vegetables from arugula and beets to spinach and squash, plus a chapter on herbs.
If you are just starting out and aren’t quite sure what kind of gardener you are yet, Gardening for Geeks will probably help you figure it out.
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