The NEW Self-Sufficient Gardener

The NEW Self-Sufficient Gardener – The Complete Illustrated Guide to Planning, Growing, Storing and Preserving Your Own Garden Produce
Written by John Seymour
Published at DK Canada

About the book

This revised edition of an old favorite, first published in 1978, explains how to cultivate and preserve all types of fruit, herbs, and vegetables, in addition to instructions on keeping bees and raising chickens.

• Includes over 600 illustrations, many redrawn for the revised edition
• Contains information on drying, storing, and preserving fruits and vegetables
• Explains the “Deep Bed” method, critical to anyone with a tiny urban plot

John Seymour authored over 40 books, including the DK’s best-selling Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency and The Forgotten Arts & Crafts. He died in the fall of 2004 at the age of 90.

My Thoughts

I dream of having a garden made of raised beds in my backyard.  This year, we will plant tomatoes as well as lettuce, carrots, and cilantro.   If these can survive this year maybe we will invest in raised beds in the future.   Needless to say, that for the time being, I love to read about gardening and learn more about caring of a garden.   When I say garden I am thinking more about a vegetable and fruit garden.    I love flowers but I tend to believe that it is essential for a family to be able to grow their own vegetables and fruits in order to reduce the grocery bill during the spring-summer-fall seasons.

This book is packed with wisdom from the Father of Self-Sufficiency himself.   Though the author has died back in 2004, we can still reap from his wisdom and learn how to maximize your garden in various ways.  The first few pages in the book will highlights the importance of a deep-bed method, the cycle of nature as well as information on the soil to use.  Then you will be able to discover ten chapters written in order to help you cultivate vegetables, fruits and herbs for your family.

• Chapter One: This chapter offers an illustrated index of vegetables, fruits, and herbs for a garden.  It covers the various edible parts of a plant, the roots, the stems, the leaves, seeds, pods, and more.
• Chapter Two: This chapter offer guidance in how to garden through the years based on the seasons we have.
• Chapter Three: This chapter will inform you about how to plan the food producing garden from the size of the garden to on to plan the sections in it.
• Chapter Four: This chapter is essential for you in order to perform a good gardening.  It will cover how to treat the soil, how to care for the growing, how to control pests and diseases, how to harvest and store your bounty and more.
• Chapter Five: This chapter will highlights how to cultivate the vegetables.
• Chapter Six: This chapter will inform you on how to cultivate the fruits.
• Chapter Seven: This chapter essentially covers the cultivation of herbs.
• Chapter Eight: This chapter highlights the advantage of using greenhouses.
• Chapter Nine: This chapter will help you to preserve your garden produce in various ways.
• Chapter Ten: This chapter covers an variety of topics from the types of animals that could invade your garden to how to care for your garden tools.    There is a ton of useful information in here.

The book contains lots of reading material for the novice or expert gardener.   I consider myself a novice in this case and I should have paid attention when my grand-mother was making her garden yearly.   Hers was big compare to what I would like to have but still I could have gleaned some precious information concerning gardening your vegetables.   Nevertheless, with this book I am confident I can do a marvelous job in growing my own veggies.   As I said it is packed with gardening wisdom and contains marvelous drawings that will help you visualize what the author is saying in the text.  The illustrations are either in black and white or in colors depending of where you are in the book. 

Let’s look at the information concerning the potato.   The author will tell you the type of soil and the climate that is ideal for growing potatoes.  He will also inform you how to treat the soil, ho to help in the propagation, how to sow and cover the early potatoes, how to use a potato planter, how to grow potatoes in a bin and care while the plants are growing.   He will also highlight the various pests and diseases that could attack your plants and inform you on how to protect them.  Finally, you will learn how to harvest and store the potatoes.    As you can see, the author covers everything from A to Z for this specific vegetable.     So you can be assure that you will find fabulous information for any kind of vegetable, fruit or herb that you want to grow in your garden.

This book is a marvelous gift for the gardener in your life.   The NEW Self-Sufficient Gardener  is available at your favourite bookstore, even amazon.ca and amazon.com.

     

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned products for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.