One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening: The Easy, Organic Way to Grow Your Own Food on a 3-Foot Square

by Lolo Houbein

Overview

All it takes to grow your own organic vegetables, fruits, and herbs is One Magic Square

Lolo Houbein has 40 years’ worth of gardening wisdom to share—on how to coax an abundance of organic food from a plot that is just 3 feet square!

• Sustainable, cost-effective, and creative techniques: how to compost, save water, troubleshoot weeds and pests, create a plant-friendly microclimate, and more
• Over 40 themed plot designs, from antioxidant-rich and anti-cancer plots to salad, pizza, pasta, and stir-fry plots
• Encyclopedic information about every crop in every plot
• Tips on drying, freezing, pickling, and other ways to get more value and enjoyment from your homegrown produce
• And her irresistible gardening philosophy (“If herbs wanted to be used frugally, they would also grow frugally. But they don’t!”)

Ever encouraging, often charming, and always practical, this expanded second edition of One Magic Square Vegetable Gardening will help first-time gardeners get started—and help veteran gardeners get results—on a small, easy-to-maintain plot. No actual magic is required!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615193257
Publisher:	The Experiment, LLC
Publication date:	02/23/2016
Edition description:	Expanded 2nd Edition
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,086,263
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lolo Houbein first learned about growing food from her Uncle Wim, whose garden saved the family from famine during World War II in Holland. In 1958, she emigrated to Australia with her husband and children. She studied literature and anthropology at the universities of Adelaide and Papua New Guinea, and has written numerous books and articles on humanitarian and conservation topics. Houbein lives and gardens in the Adelaide Hills of Australia.

Table of Contents

Preface x

Introduction xii

Abbreviations xiv

Part 1 Towards Sustainable and Self-Sufficient Food Growing

The Terrifying Importance of Growing Food 2

How to Get Started 11

How to Find Time to Grow Food 16

Gardening with Attitude 19

Ten Green Rules 21

Part 2 Tips and Tricks

Starting and Maintaining 24

How to Set Up a Food Plot 25

Soil Secrets 29

Compost Compositions 34

Seeds and Seedlings 41

Easy-Care Fruit Trees 49

Companion Planting and Intercropping 52

Water and Watering 55

Big Yielders and Gross Feeders 60

Plant Food and Soil Food 63

The Message of Mulch 69

Pruning, Pinching, and Thinning 74

Crop Rotation and Green Crops 76

Problem-Solving 82

What to Do about Weeds 83

Pests and Predators 86

Visitors from the Biosphere 89

An A-Z of Pests and Problems 94

Livestock, Birds and Bees, and Frogs 102

Hardware in the Food Garden 105

Thinking Outside the Magic Square 115

The Seasons 116

Climate, Weather, and Microclimate 119

Permaculture 124

Easy Vegetables to Grow 126

Saving Seed 129

From Garden to Table 135

Essential Utensils 137

Cupboard Self-Sufficiency 139

Part 3 The Magic Square Plots

A Note on the Magic Square Plots 146

The Salad Plots 147

The Fava Bean Plot 156

The Omega- 3 Plot 158

The Antioxidants Plot 160

The Curry Plots 162

The Beans Plot 164

The Stir-Fry Plots 167

The Asian Greens Plot 170

The Baby Greens Plot 173

The Arugula Plot 174

The Root Crop Plot 176

The Pasta/Pizza Plots 178

The Wild Greens (Horta) Plot 180

The Aztec Plot 182

The Pea Plot 185

The Melon Plot 186

The Chinese Melon Plot 187

The Essential Herb Plot 189

The Soup Plots 192

The Pick-and-Come-Again Plot 198

The Starchy Staples Plot 199

The Rotating Mono-Crops Plot 200

The Interlacing Plot 201

The Onion and Garlic Plot 204

The Ginger or Galangal Plot 205

The Anti-Cancer Plots 207

Berry Plots and Hedges 209

The Pumpkin Plot 211

The Perennials 213

The Spice Companions 215

The Stinging Nettle Plot 216

The Edible Flower Plot 218

Part 4 Descriptions of Food Plants

An A-Z of Vegetable Families 222

Summer, Winter, and All-Season Vegetables and Herbs 225

Common Vegetables: How to Grow and Use Them 229

More Value from Popular Vegetables 273

Common Herbs: How to Grow and Use Them 279

Easy-Care Fruit Trees and Berries: How to Grow and Use Them 293

Preserving and Using Home Produce 307

Notes 312

References and Further Reading 314

Useful Addresses 317

Acknowledgments 319

Index 321

About the Author 338

Editorial Reviews

"One of Amazon’s Best Books of the Month in Crafts, Hobbies & Home 2016
Foreword INDIES Honorable Mention

"Enchants on many levels."

Chicago Tribune

"[Houbein is] brilliantly contemporary in organizing each of her 40-plus model gardens into a number of practical culinary groupings. The clever gardener . . . could make this book work anywhere."

Booklist

"The thirty ‘Magic Square’ garden plots offer plenty of ideas, from a simple garden salad with a variety of lettuces, to gardens for soup, stir fry, root crops, and more."

San Francisco Chronicle

"So many gardening books feature plants’ mile-long Latin names and confusing charts. Not this one. Its easy-to-follow instructions, diagrams, and photos inspire desire to grow good-for-the-body fresh produce from little yard space. A bonus: some delicious serving suggestions. One Magic Square tells you everything you need to get started and profiles each plant."

The Virginian-Pilot

One of Amazon’s Best Books of the Month in Crafts, Hobbies Home
2016 Foreword INDIES Honorable Mention

“Enchants on many levels.” –Chicago Tribune

“The thirty ‘Magic Square’ garden plots offer plenty of ideas, from a simple garden salad with a variety of lettuces, to gardens for soup, stir fry, root crops, and more.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“[Houbein is] brilliantly contemporary in organizing each of her 40-plus model gardens into a number of practical culinary groupings. The clever gardener . . . could make this book work anywhere.”—Booklist

“So many gardening books feature plants’ mile-long Latin names and confusing charts. Not this one. Its easy-to-follow instructions, diagrams, and photos inspire desire to grow good-for-the-body fresh produce from little yard space. A bonus: some delicious serving suggestions. One Magic Square tells you everything you need to get started and profiles each plant.” –The Virginian-Pilot

From the Publisher

Australian gardener Houbein has a personal and intimate understanding of food security, having survived famine during the Nazi occupation in Holland. In this charming but meandering book, she warns of the dangers of globalized, corporate agribusiness and “aims to put you in control of the production of at least part of the food you need.” She claims that one square yard of garden will provide a 10th of a person's food needs and encourages everyone to start a “magic square” or two. The book provides basic gardening information and a wide variety of square-yard vegetable garden plans, from salad plots to curry and anticancer plots, with sections on fruit trees and chickens thrown in, but this is as much a compilation of Houbein's gardening life as a straightforward step-by-step how-to manual. Like an eccentric but wise great aunt, at turns whimsically practical (“apart from spreading shredded bracken on beds to decay, use ferns as parasols for seedlings”) and confusingly questionable (“At this point in time, vast stretches of land are being poisoned by carbon dioxide smoke from brush and forest fires”), Houbein offers much valuable advice, but the presentation is so disorganized that novice gardeners looking for a clear and simple way to get started may be flummoxed. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Lolo Houbein’s magic garden squares are creative, international, and a fun way to learn the magic of growing your own food.”
—Tanya Denckla, author of The Gardener’s A–Z Guide to Growing Organic Food“This timely guide will assist first-time and experienced gardeners in taking control of their own food supply at a time of...increasing fuel and food prices. Food gardening is the most intelligent adult endeavor on earth—Lolo Houbein shows you how to do it, and why you should.”
—EcoVoice (Australia)

EcoVoice (Australia)

[Lolo Houbein] asserts that anyone can grow vegetables using only a plot about the size of one square yard. She offers good directions on what to put into compost, how often to turn it to speed the process, how to go about companion planting and intercropping, and how to pinch, thin, and prune plants to keep them in check . . . [and] includes plot plans for everything from cancer prevention and antioxidant plants to basic salad and soup ingredients, with instructions for where to plant what in each plot.”
—Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

From plot designs to starting seeds to composting, [One Magic Square] offers beginners a manageable way to get started with organic gardening. It also gives great advice on natural ways of keeping pests away, as well as useful vegetable groupings, even recipes.”
—The Post-Star

The Post-Star

One Magic Square . . . enchants on many levels. Veggie gardeners (especially rookies) will benefit from Houbein's knowledge, which is informed by science and folk wisdom, as well as the breadth of its content (growing information, 30 design plots, many recipes). This single line could sustain us for life: 'Never garden in a mood of wanting to control everything.'”
—The Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune

The 30 'Magic Square' garden plots offer plenty of ideas, from a simple salad garden with a variety of lettuces, to gardens for soup, stir fry, root crops and more.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

Houbein, who lives and gardens in Australia, introduces her magic square method of organic vegetable and herb gardening. She discusses the difficulties with current food production methods and then goes on to tell readers how to grow food at home using three-foot squares. She describes 30 plot designs including salad plots, a summer stir-fry plot, and a soup plot. She also covers preparing garden beds, composting, pests, and vegetable and herb culture, and she shares some recipes. However, while the author is clearly passionate about her subject, the book is rambling and disorganized, and Houbein just touches on the many topics covered without providing the details that beginning gardeners need. VERDICT Edward C. Smith's The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, tenth-anniversary edition, is a better choice because he offers detailed instructions for creating and caring for a garden as well as excellent how-to photographs. He also includes vegetable varieties suggested for U.S. gardeners. For those who like using garden squares, a good choice remains Mel Bartholomew's All New Square Foot Gardening.—Sue O'Brien, Downers Grove P.L., IL

Library Journal