In celebration of National Gardening Day today I bring you a trio of great books from Quarto Knows that would make an excellent addition to any gardening library to help with planning for gardening season. I was sent copies of all three books at no charge. Read on to learn about them and then enter to win a set.
Planning for Gardening Season
The hubby starts planning his garden almost as soon as the previous year’s garden is done. Almost. He orders his seeds in January and starts planting in February or March. He doesn’t plant outside mind you – he plants in the basement.
This year he started earlier than last year in the hopes of having a better broccoli and cauliflower harvest. Last year it was mediocre at best. The carrot harvest was abysmal last year too – we are hoping for much better this year. Only time will tell.
Books for Your Gardening Library
There are a wealth of books for your gardening library available and I’m going to share three of them with you. The hubby has all of them in his gardening library and has found them all very useful.
About Straw Bale Solutions:
Half a Million Straw Bale Gardeners Can’t Be Wrong
From Australia to France to the UK and far beyond, Straw Bale Gardening is making an impact. The revolutionary method of growing food in bales has been on the scene for just a few years, but in that time it has spread across the world with unprecedented speed. The reason? In any climate and on any continent you can grow beautiful, fresh vegetables in environments where no food has grown before.
In Straw Bale Solutions you will find over two dozen stories of SBG gardens that inspire as much as they educate. You will recognize in them many of the challenges any gardener faces, and you will see how you can use the experiences of others to write your own SBG success story.
About the Author:
Joel Karsten developed the straw bale gardening method more than ten years ago. As interest grew, he became one of the most in-demand garden lecturers in the country. A pioneer and an entrepreneur, Karsten has been featured in the New York Times, national television and radio, and dozens of other major media outlets. Karsten has a degree in horticulture from the University of Minnesota, and currently resides in Roseville, Minnesota.
About Vegetables Love Flowers:
Fight garden pests and increase your yields the natural way with this tried and true technique!
Planting vegetables and flowers together is one of the oldest ways to create a healthy, bountiful garden, but there’s more to the method than you might think. Vegetables Love Flowers will walk you through the ins and outs of companion planting, from how it works to which plants go together and how to grow the best garden for your climate.
With the right information and some careful planning, you can help your plants thrive–and beautify your garden in the process.
About the Author:
Lisa Ziegler is an author, accomplished speaker, and the owner of the Gardener’s Workshop, a thriving small market farm. She began her career selling cut flowers to local florists and Colonial Williamsburg, a business that soon grew to include florists, supermarkets, farmer’s markets, a garden-share program, and a subscription service and later expanded into selling the tools, supplies, and seeds that she used in her own garden. At the same time, Lisa has steadily built a speaking career leading presentations and workshops for garden clubs, master gardeners, commercial growers, and other groups centering on her simplified organic gardening methods.
About Heirloom Vegetable Gardening:
“This book is sure to be a modern classic and is one of the most important books on gardening in the current century.”
—Jere Gettle, founder, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Heirloom Vegetable Gardening has always been a book for gardeners and cooks interested in unique flavors, colors, and history in their produce. This updated edition has been improved throughout with growing zones, advice, and new plant entries. Line art has been replaced with lush, full-color photography. Yet at the core, this book delivers on the same promise it made two decades ago: It’s a comprehensive guide based on meticulous first-person research to these 300+ plants, making it a book to come back to season after season.
About the Author:
William Woys Weaver is an internationally known food historian and a rare four-time winner of the prestigious IACP/Julia Child Cookbook Awards. Weaver, a master gardener, has been featured on such national programs as Good Morning America (with Julia Child); has appeared in many special food documentaries, including Terrapin, which won an Emmy; and has been the subject of special articles in Americana, Food & Wine, Food Arts, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and Country Living. Weaver received his doctorate in food studies at University College Dublin, Ireland, the first doctorate awarded by the University in that field of study. He maintains the Roughwood Seed Collection of heirloom food plants at the historic Lamb Tavern in Devon, Pennsylvania.
Gardening Library
The hubby was happy to add all three of these books to his garden library. They will surely help in planning for gardening season. It never hurts to have a wide range of references available to you all year ’round when you are growing most of the food you eat. And that we do here on the farm! He’s especially looking forward to using some of the tips he read about in Gardening with Flowers. It’s something he’s been considering for a while. He plants mostly heirloom seeds as a matter of course.
The Giveaway:
One lucky US reader will win ALL THREE BOOKS. Just enter as many ways as you would like on the Gleam widget below. Full rules are on the widget. Good luck everyone!
ALL PURCHASE LINKS BELOW ARE AFFILIATE LINKS WHICH MEANS IF YOU BUY ANYTHING THROUGH THEM I WILL RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION (AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE TO YOU)
