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Title: The Edible Container Garden: Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces by Michael Guerra ISBN: 0684854619 Publisher: Fireside Pub. Date: 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2
Rating: 4
Summary: Planting in tight places.....
Comment: Michael Guerra's EDIBLE CONTAINER GARDEN - "Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces" is filled with unique insights and original photographs. Although I don't own a spread exactly like the gorgeous places shown on several pages in this book, I am moving in that direction, so the composition of the beautiful and practical gardens of others is of interest to me. Each garden depicted in this book can be decomposed into elements that can be transported to almost any location and arranged in almost any way.
A fact of life in an urban area is compacted soil. The typical urban homesteader is unlikely to own a rototiller that can be used to plow the yard and create a friendly habitat for a few fennel plants (although these tools are becoming smaller every day). Guerra's photographs and text describe projects that finesse hard surfaces. I especially like the partitioned timber container filled with many herbs standing above a graveled path. He also shows a raised bed with a most interesting set of joined corners using eyelet screws. The hardest surface of all to "farm" is a rooftop, but several photos show just what can be done with containers on top of a building. The corn and beans growing at the edge of one roof with a street full of cars below make me wonder how any insects could ever find and destroy this produce.
Guerra suggests gardeners can recycle materials and employ permaculture principles in urban settings. One permaculture trick involves stacking and arranging plants in a canopied effect. Guerra includes a number of photos showing various structures one might build to grow plants vertically thereby maximizing the use of space while conserving water. At the back of his book he includes photos of his own urban lot where he uses every square inch above and below to grow food-bearing as well as flowering plants.
Guerra's book is a great place to start if you've been thinking about creating your own little Victory Garden and wondered what might be possible. You will need more information than this book provides, since he does not include much about plants so check out KITCHEN GARDENS IN CONTAINERS by Antony Atha.
Rating: 5
Summary: You taste first with your eyes
Comment: The best thing about this book is that it presents gardens that are not only small and practical, but are also beautiful to look at - it has many color photographs. Lush, "wild", yet organized and productive.
It's a rather thin book, I use it more for leisure browsing and idea-fishing, than as encyclopedia. Nevertheless I think it covers everything what beginning gardeners need to start a successful garden - it does have descriptions of all common vegetables, herbs and even fruits suitable for container growing.
Rating: 5
Summary: Utilitarian gardening with beauty
Comment: Inspired by the Moosewood Collective's use of fresh produce in their cooking and their environmentally conscientious attitude, I've become a member of the 'if you're going to plant something, plant it with a purpose' school of gardening. So of course, I found this book wonderful, full of practical and inspirational ideas for creating a beautiful, functional, useable garden when you have very little space/time.
The deck outside our front door is now inhabited by a very good herb garden, pots of courgettes with broad dark green leaves and beautiful yellow flowers, japanese greens and a tomato vine, making cooking with fresh produce as easy as stepping out the kitchen door for a moment. But I have visions of formal kitchen gardens full of the reds of rhubarb and maple leaves, glossy purple eggplants, large concrete tubs overflowing with strawberries. The photos in this book taken of the authors' and their friends' gardens are incredible. That something so beautiful could also be so useful is wonderfully appealing. I can't imagine myself growing anything that couldn't be eaten or used in some way these days. Even more relevant... as a young person who moves house regularly, planting in containers is ideal, because I can just pick my garden up and take it with me.
A very useful book.
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