The best thing about this book is that it brings together basic info like the making of
compost and more advanced topics like how to set up
drip irrigation, mini sprinklers, and timers. She shows, from start to finish, how to set up a very intensive and high-yielding garden.
I was interested in seeing that she uses a LOT! of
straw in the lower part of her containers, along with a little fertilizer to provide the straw with nitrogen. Over time this breaks down and the decomposition of the straw provides little extra heat to the
roots in the spring. It also means that not as much soil is needed for the planting boxes and planting buckets. Soil is expensive, but organic matter is not always so. I have some seed-free vegetation that I can pack into the bottom of a couple of large pots: I was not going to plant those this year because of the cost of soil but it
should be inexpensive if I only use soil for the top 6 inches. I should also be able to use a lot of fall leaves in this manner: if I pack them down then the pots should be ready to plant next spring.
A variety of trellises are shown, of
course!
So often in life it is not what you do, it is how you do it. The beauty of this book is that all of the bits of info, from construction to finished bed with growing plants and sprinklers, is put together into a cohesive whole. I am going to recommend to my library that they get a copy for their stacks!
