- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
A lively, passionate argument for the backyard vegetable garden, drawing on science, history, and stories from the author’s garden.
Our parents saw supermarkets and processed foods as the height of convenience. But nothing is more convenient than grocery shopping in the backyard. A vegetable garden offers the best defense against rising food prices, the most environmentally sound way to eat, and better exercise than any gym. It will turn anyone into a wonderful cook, since nothing tastes more vibrant than homegrown. And it can take less time every week than a trip to the supermarket.
In Grow the Good Life, Michele Owens, an amateur gardener for almost two decades, makes an entertaining and persuasive case for vegetable gardens. She starts with two simple but radical ideas: Growing food on a small scale is easy, and it is absurdly rewarding.
With her wry, funny, and accessible approach, Owens helps beginning gardeners overcome obstacles that keep them from planting a few seedlings every spring. She explains why dirt isn’t dirty; the health benefits of growing one’s own food; and that vegetable gardens are not antithetical to the frantic pace of modern life, but simple and undemanding if intelligently managed.
Grow the Good Life is not just another how-to. Instead, it will teach you the true fundamentals of vegetable growing: how to fit a garden into your life and why it’s worth the trouble.
Introduction: What I've Hauled Out of the Garden ix
1 Why Don't Americans Garden? 1
2 Money
Better Than Berkshire Hathaway Stock Bought in '65 24
3 Flavor
If You Haven't Grown It, You Haven't Tasted It 44
4 Health
Eternal Youth's Not in a Fountain, But in a Garden 69
5 The Soil
Why Dirt Isn't Dirty 84
6 Beauty
Prettier Than Sod and Shrubs Any Day 113
7 The Kids
What They'll Take Out of the Garden 132
8 The Never-Ending Education
Why You'll Soon Be as Much of an Expert as Any Expert 150
9 Survival
How to Stay Adaptable in Uncertain Times 172
10 Happiness
The Best Reason to Garden 189
Acknowledgments 199
Suggested Reading 201
Index 203
Overview
A lively, passionate argument for the backyard vegetable garden, drawing on science, history, and stories from the author’s garden.
Our parents saw supermarkets and processed foods as the height of convenience. But nothing is more convenient than grocery shopping in the backyard. A vegetable garden offers the best defense against rising food prices, the most environmentally sound way to eat, and better exercise than any gym. It will turn anyone into a wonderful cook, since nothing tastes more vibrant than homegrown. And it can take less time every week than a trip to the supermarket.
In Grow the Good Life, ...