If there was ever a book I wish I’d read 15 years ago, it is this one: The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden by Karen Newcomb. This book is filled with tips and tricks to “grow tons of organic vegetables in tiny spaces and containers.” Prior to moving to our homestead almost two years ago, my gardens were always small plots carved out of the yard of wherever I was living (which is why my husband coined the word “yarden” for my yard gardens!) I often coupled my “yarden” growing with container gardening to expand my growing space. If I’d had this book years ago, I would’ve been able to grow SO much more food in those small spaces!
Now that I have my dream garden and the size is just under 1/4 acre, I don’t have as much focus on growing a ton of food in small spaces. Despite this, there were still plenty of tips I gleaned from this book. The book is broken out into chapters that address all the basic aspects of gardening from the planning stage to soil, preparing the ground, watering methods, types of vegetables to grow and pest control.
My favorite part of this book was chapter six: Heirloom Vegetables and Herbs You’ll Love to Grow. This is a long chapter filled with specifics about a wide variety of vegetables to grow. Each vegetable is described and planting tips are provided. There are also tips on crop stretching, potential diseases or pests, harvesting and storage tips and growing tips. Each vegetable also has recommended varieties listed, although for me this wasn’t too applicable since I always try to get varieties that do well in a shorter, cooler growing season.
The other chapter that I really enjoyed was on companion planting. I’ve only just begun to learn more about companion planting and can’t wait to implement some of these ideas in our garden this year. I never knew that planting tomatoes near members of the cabbage family can help repel cabbage butterflies!
The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden is a handy gardening guide for any vegetable gardener looking to increase your yields. While it is specifically geared towards growing a lot of vegetables in small spaces, I gleaned quite a bit of helpful information from the book and my gardens are anything but small!
Thank you to Blogging for Books for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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Hi Annie, I like the idea of skills which have been handed over through generations related to food production, harvest and preservation. In my family such knowledge is quite valuable though a great deal is disappearing. i Am from Kenya and to learn how other people are doing to keep natural foods is great. I love the simple and working methods