If you just want a recipe for refrigerator pickles, then skip this book and Google it. But if you want information about living a more sustainable, self-sufficient, home-grown lifestyle, then Daniel Gasteiger has written your bible: Yes You Can! And Freeze and Dry It, Too. This is the sort of book that makes you feel smart for having read it. Daniel shares his food preserving experience and tips in a way that is intelligent and informative while still highly accessible.

Thanks to the internet, everyone and their mother has published their thoughts on how to freeze peas or preserve green beans. This book has more than enough of that sort of advice to get you started, but the real value of this book is Daniel himself. Want to know how much broccoli to plant so that you can preserve enough to feed a family of five? Daniel has been there, done that, and he provided plenty of useful lists for planning that sort of thing. Oops. Someone left your freezer door open. Daniel has been through that too and he has helpful advice on how to determine what to save and what to toss. How should you decide whether to freeze, dry, or can your strawberries? Daniel has thoughts and suggestions to help guide your decision.

The book is nicely designed, with useful colored strips at the top of each page to help you flip to exactly the right info. Advice on making the most of your root cellar is in orange, dehydrating is brown, freezing is red, canning is either dark green or lime green depending on the acidity of the item to be preserved, and so on. Throughout the book are helpful “From the Tip Jar” thoughts from Daniel on everything from ways to use up extra simple syrup to ideas for making nutritious frozen treats for the dog days of summer.

I know Daniel a little bit through the wonders of the internet. His voice comes through loud and clear in this book. Daniel is self-assured, knowledgeable, and has a wry sense of humor. When you’re preserving food using this book, you will get to know Daniel a little bit too. It reads as though your super-smart, handy next door neighbor has sat you down and taught you step-by-step how to preserve the best of each season and eat better all year round.

I’m not an experienced food-preserver, but I was able to follow Daniel’s sage advice and made some delicious pickled vegetables. Daniel recommends using them in a sweet and sour pork recipe that he included in the book, but this vegetarian might not be able to resist eating them all right out of the jar…

If you are looking for a definitive guide to saving all those tomatoes you have on your plants, you will be thrilled to have Yes You Can! in your kitchen.

Here’s where to find Daniel on the internets

• Your Small Kitchen Garden (blog)
• Facebook Page
• Twitter

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I received Yes You Can! as a free review copy from the book’s publisher. Here is more information about my book review policy.

Please welcome author Helen Babbs (My Garden, the City and Me) to Life on the Balcony as she gives us a tour of her London rooftop garden and some of the creatures that visit her from time to time. In case you needed any more convincing, Helen’s garden is proof that you can grow almost anything, regardless of how small or lacking in dirt your garden space may be…

My garden is a three metre square rooftop, attached to a tiny apartment in a chaotic bit of north London. The space is home-sweet-home but postage stamp sized. What makes my part of this paltry palace special is the fact my bedroom contains a glass door that opens out onto that fenced-in flat roof.

An over-sized balcony that was once a blank grey square, I’ve turned it into an aerial, edible garden packed with various potted plants. Knotted with climbing peas and beans, and scented with herbs and dotted with flowers, it’s a true living room where I can pick salad for lunch, and sun and moon bathe for hours.

As well as crops that can bear an entirely container bound life – runner bean, tomato, courgette, potato, garlic, radish, strawberry, salads and herbs – I’ve sought out flowers, especially night blooming ones. Summer evenings on the roof are perfumed by tobacco plant, evening primrose and jasmine.

I share the space with various creatures. There are havoc-wreaking squirrels and hungry slugs and snails, but also welcome beetles, bees, butterflies, birds and even bats. Pollinators are drawn in by the nectar-rich likes of lavender and sweet-pea. Ladybirds eat my aphids, birds eat my slugs and bats pick off any biting mosquitoes.

My favourite visitors are a dishevelled blackbird and his lady wife. He sits and sings on my fence posts, while she steals string from my bean poles. Their efforts mean a space that’s sandwiched between the Camden and Holloway Roads is sound-tracked with birdsong as well as traffic hum and sirens.

I love the fact my tiny rooftop kitchen garden has become a nature reserve of sorts. Spending so much time outside has made me even more curious about London’s green spaces. I’ve started exploring her wildernesses and getting to know more about the wildlife that makes a home here.

There’s something extra special about the nature found within a city sprawl. The fact that wildlife can be vigorous and that a range of creatures can survive and even thrive in such a seething, heaving place as London is brilliant.

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When Helen isn’t getting dirty on her roof, she’s a writer and journalist. My Garden, the City and Me: Rooftop Adventures in the Wilds of London - is her first book and has just been published. It’s about the glory of growing things and the ecology of a capital city. The book reveals how much wildlife urban areas can support and invites readers to see built-up spaces in new ways. Find out more at www.aerialediblegardening.co.uk and www.helenbabbs.wordpress.com

Crystal! I’ll send you an email to find out where I can send your copy of Garden Up!

Thanks to everyone who entered. It’s an excellent book, so I hope you’ll get yourself a copy and send me fab pictures of your vertical gardens!

If you enjoy clever vertical gardening ideas (like planting a pallet garden) then I am sure you will enjoy a great book I was given called Garden Up! by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet. It is chock full of useful advice from two very talented garden designers. Susan and Rebecca walk you step by step through the vertical garden design process, and offer all sorts of great tips for solving common problems, like how to hide an ugly air conditioning unit, or unsightly electrical boxes.

This is totally the kind of book that you flip through in the bookstore and say “ooh, I want to do that,” and “wow, that’s so clever!” After saying those sorts of things so many times to yourself, you end up buying a copy for yourself and another for a friend whose birthday is coming up (and whose patio could use some of the tips in the book! ).

The Kind of Awesomeness You Can Expect in Garden Up!

Garden Up! is broken down into eight chapters that cover things like design ideas for skinny spaces, solutions for disguising eyesores, how to create a living wall, and plant suggestions for tackling specific vertical gardening projects (to name a few). Sprinkled throughout are charming sketches that explain design concepts, and sidebars that take a closer look at a particular garden’s vertical gardening ideas.

Oh, and always important in a gardening book, the photos show all sorts of gardens that you wish were yours, like a fire escape that looks more like an English country garden, and a small patio with shutters that double as a succulent planters.

Love strawberries? You’ll definitely want to flip to page 134 and 135 to see the PVC pipe turned strawberry pot, hanging from a wall (it’s right next to the DIY upside down tomato planter). I bet it is actually better than traditional strawberry pots at keeping the strawberries well watered because there are no awkward pockets to miss with the watering can.

You’ll also find lots of clever trellis/fencing ideas. I loved the re-use of these old gates as trellises to soften a cinder block wall. There was another really awesome idea on page 75 to upgrade basic lattice into something really special. I don’t have a photo of that one, so you’ll just have to take my word on it and buy the book to see for yourself. I think I am going to try something similar the next time I need a trellis.

Did you know that grapes can be trained into patio trees? Me neither. That is, until I saw one in all its glory on page 131. Last week I noticed that my local garden center is selling all sorts of wine grapes, like merlot and pinot noir. How awesome would it be to have a pot with a grape “tree” that you can use to make your own wine? Susan and Rebecca have several other ideas for edible plants that can be trained into small trees, perfect for adding height to small spaces.

If you want to see more photos from the book, check out the official Garden Up Flickr stream.

Still Hungry for More Vertical Garden Deliciousness?

Tune in on Wednesday for Garden Up! co-author Susan Morrison’s guest post. A while back, Susan shared the bird’s eye view sketch of a small patio courtyard she had designed for a client. I knew it would be awesome, and asked Susan if she would share some of her small-space garden ideas in a guest post. Lucky for all of us, she agreed! I’ve already read the post and drooled over the photos of that completed courtyard, so I know you guys will love it!

Photo by Sarah Cady

I was flipping through my copy of Sugar Snaps & Strawberries last night, and rediscovered a great section with tips on container gardening on balconies and patios. If you remember from my previous review, Sugar Snaps & Strawberries is an awesome guide to growing your own food in urban spaces. Andrea shares all sorts of ideas, from guerilla gardening to raised beds, and everything in between.

Here are Andrea’s tips for picking the right container:

1. “Containers are water hogs” - Andrea suggests buying a pot that is a size or two larger than you think you’ll need, and I totally agree. The smaller the pot, the more often you’ll have to water during the summer. When I was refreshing my balcony garden this weekend, I got rid of most of my small pots, and brought in a few new, larger ones for exactly this reason.
2. “Bad drainage rots roots” – Andrea is not a fan of plant saucers or pots without drainage holes at all. And for good reason. They both trap water in a pot, which can lead to rotting roots. Andrea suggests using pot feet to raise your pot off the ground and allow water to drain away.
3. “Container size limits plant size” – A lot of people don’t realize that there is a correlation between the size of plant you can see above ground, and the root system that you can’t see below ground. Andrea asks gardeners to be kind to their trees and larger plants by giving them a pot that gives their roots room to grow.
4. “Not all containers are created equal” –  Andrea advises investing in better quality containers that can withstand the weather in your area. It may seem cheaper to buy an inexpensive pot, but if it cracks the first time you have a hard freeze/thaw and you have to replace it, the pot wasn’t that cheap after all.

Have your own tips for picking a great pot? Share them in the comments!

I am so excited to review and highly recommend fellow blogger Andrea Bellamy’s debut book: Sugar Snaps and Strawberries. Andrea–who can be found at one of my favorite gardening blogs, Heavy Petal–wrote an inspiring book for those with a can-do spirit but not much gardening space.

One of my favorite parts of garden books are the pictures, and Sugar Snaps and Strawberries does not disappoint! The photos are beautiful, and inspiring, but they’re also real, and attainable. You look at them and think “I can do this!” Another visually appealing aspect of this book is the overall design, it looks like a crafty person’s scrapbook and makes the book feel very approachable.

The next thing on my list of requirements for a gardening book is actionable information that I can implement right away. Even though I’ve been gardening in one form or another for close to twenty years, I felt refreshed and re-inspired by Andrea’s advice. I really appreciated the sidebars sprinkled throughout the book with quick “hey, try this” sort of tips. For example, on page 19, Andrea made a list of easy-to-digest info on making an edible garden beautiful, with ideas like “Aim for a variety of leaf shapes in your planting. Contrast crinkly leafed chard with fern like carrots and large leafed squashes with tall, slim straps of leeks.”

Andrea really does a great job of holding your hand as you create your vegetable garden, but respects you enough to point you towards a vegetable garden that is just as pretty as any flower bed. Someone who has never gardened before can pick this book up, follow Andrea’s advice, and be very successful. And those of us who have grown a tomato or two in our lives will find plenty of great ideas and advice to keep us flipping to the next page.

If you’re looking for a last minute gift for the gardener on your list, Sugar Snaps and Strawberries by Andrea Bellamy is definitely it!

p.s. One of the photos in the book depicts a canoe completely packed to the brim with a gorgeous vegetable garden. You really can garden anywhere!

I’ve been reading through my review copy of The Book of Little Hostas by Kathy and Michael Shadrack. It’s a great introduction to hostas, with a focus on plants that form clumps less than 15 inches tall, and some as small as 6 inches tall. The really great thing about the hostas featured in Little Hostas is that they are all well-suited to container gardens, some practically require it.

I didn’t know much about hostas before reading this book. Hostas aren’t particularly well-suited to Southern California’s hot, dry summers. But after reading Little Hostas, I’ve fallen in lust with several of these diminutive plants. Here are my three favorites:

• Hosta ‘X-Rated’ - I love the ribbon-like leaves. And the name. This hosta does best in dappled shade, according to Little Hostas, and can be grown in a tub or in a rock garden.
• Hosta ‘Snow Mouse’ – This plant has fantastic blue-green leaves with splashes of cream down the center. The Shadracks say that this hosta will take some sun and is best grown in a ceramic container.
• Hosta ‘Dragon Tails’ - Great chartreuse color and ruffled leaves. The Shadracks recommend light shade, and I can really see this plant bringing some zip to a shady window box.

Have you ever grown hostas in a container? What’s your favorite cultivar? Got any growing tips?

On this, the afternoon before Halloween festivities get started, I have been reading through my review copy of How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack, by Chuck Sambuchino. Since this advice is of the utmost of importance and relevancy, I thought I would share three of Chuck’s ideas for protecting, defending, and doing hand-to-hand combat with garden gnomes.

1. Construct a Moat – According to Sambuchino, garden gnomes cannot swim. If possible, dig a trench around your home and fill it with water. This is an effective means of thwarting an attack on your home.
2. Keep Multiple Bicycles on Hand – Apparently garden gnomes often disable automobiles, in order to prevent their victims’ escape. If you have several alternate methods of escape, your odds of survival improve.
3. Partially Block Doorways – By placing objects in doorways that limit access, gnomes will have to enter in single file, making it easier for you to knock them off, and discouraging further attacks.

I hope these ideas help you have a safe, and happy Halloween. Find more garden gnome protection ideas in How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack, it’s a fun, easy read.

I recently received a review copy of a book called Juicy Tasty Tomatoes by Annette Welsford & Lucia Grimmer that contains a lot of very useful information from experienced tomato growing experts. Unfortunately, while I think the book itself is a good comprehensive tomato growing guide, I don’t think the $45.95 price is justified, and I’m suspicious of the infomercial-esque website being used to sell the book.

Tomato Growing Guide

Juicy Tasty Tomatoes really is comprehensive. The substantive part of the book begins with a quick start guide that serves as a cheat sheet for the information found in the rest of the book. The authors then discuss different varieties of tomatoes, explain the difference between heirlooms and hybrids, and provide useful lists of both “cool season” (i.e. short season) and “warm season” (long season) varieties. This is followed with step-by-step info on site preparation, cultivation, watering, fertilizing, pests, harvesting, seed collecting, organic growing, hydroponics and greenhouse growing. All covered in more than adequate detail.

What’s nice about this book is that a complete novice could pick it up, and if he or she followed the authors’ advice, would have all the knowledge needed to be successful. The information isn’t dumbed down though. A seasoned tomato grower would certainly learn some new things and find the pest and disease sections very helpful. I doubt anyone–novice or experienced gardener alike–could come up with a question or scenario not covered in the book.

My primary complaint about the book is that the photos are small (all of them are in the 2-3 inch range) and many aren’t high quality. If you believe the (ridiculous) website being used to sell the book, the book’s real value is $49.95. I don’t know about you all, but I can’t remember the last time I bought a book for $50, and if I ever did, I would expect professionally taken, large, nicely printed photos. Gardening books must have top quality photos in my opinion. It’s non-negotiable.

A quick note about the website. At present time, it is a one page, really long, infomercial-type sales pitch. Typical of such websites, it claims that the products bundled together are worth way more than any home gardener would pay for them, and then acts like it is such a great deal to get them at a much lower, but still absurd (in my opinion) price. I find it a HUGE turn off.

Our Family Tomato Cookbook

Bundled with every purchase of Juicy Tasty Tomatoes is Our Family’s Tomato Cookbook. I’ll be blunt, I would never purchase this cookbook, and wouldn’t have any use for it even if it was a gift. The recipes are not very interesting, and at least one is reprinted directly from the internet. You’d think that a cookbook solely covering recipes for tomatoes would have innovative ideas for using specific varieties of tomatoes. But you’d be wrong. I didn’t see any recipes that called for a tomato by variety name. And similar to Juicy Tasty Tomatoes, the photos are snapshot quality, and small. If you’re looking for a tomato recipe book, I recommend you check out The Tomato Festival Cookbook.

Tomato Varieties Database

Supposedly the tomato varieties database on an included CD is worth $72.95 and grants access to a database describing 1300 different varieties and provides information on where seeds can be purchased. However, I couldn’t view the database at all. I clicked on the appropriate file as instructed, but when I entered the username and password listed on the CD, all I got were error messages. Honestly, maybe I am spoiled by how easily things normally work on a Mac, but with a product whose package sells $45.95, I shouldn’t have to search through a list of folders and files to hunt down the right file and then fiddle with usernames and passwords. And it should actually work.

Journaling and Information Sheets

These basically contain information in the book reorganized into a “cheat sheet” format. Included are Common Problems Ready Reckoner, Growth Stage Cultivation Guide, Conversion Guide, and Tomato Growing Diary. They’re handy, but I personally wouldn’t pay extra for them. And certainly not the $39.95 value attributed to them.

I recently purchased Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening and Sunset Western Garden Book of Edibles and can’t believe it took me so long to add these books to my library! I first heard of Pat Welsh’s book when she was the keynote speaker at my Master Gardener graduation. She came across as warm and charming, both of which come through in the book. The Western Garden Book of Edibles is the companion (I think) to Sunset’s Western Garden Book, which includes edibles, but seems more focused on the ornamental garden. This book is much more thorough when it comes to edibles.

Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening

Pat’s book focuses on what grows well in Southern California, and pays special attention to things like drought tolerance and fire-resistance (for those Southern Californians living in forest-fire-prone areas). She also provides Southern California specific advice on when to plant, prune, fertilize, and divide those plants.

What I really love about this book is that it is organized in a month-by-month format. What we grow in Southern California and when we can grow it is pretty different from the majority of the country. For example, cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens are what we grow late Fall to early Spring. Usually we get too many random days of hot temperatures in late Spring and early Fall to try and grow those edibles then.

Each chapter is dedicated to what should be done in the garden during that month. The chapter begins with an easy to reference table of contents so that you can zoom right over to the task you were looking for. The chapter ends with handy checklists so you can get a quick reminder of things to do that month. In between is wonderful advice, written in a friendly tone of voice, about how to manage your garden from a practical, organic perspective.

If you’re new to California, or are frustrated that the advice you’ve been following doesn’t seem to work, this is a great book to have on hand.

Sunset’s Western Garden Book of Edibles

The Western Garden Book of Edibles, put out by the inimitable folks behind Sunset Magazine, is not just for Southern Californians, but it contains tried-and-true advice for growing edible plants in the West. A lot of edible gardening books can be kind of generic in their advice, probably because the authors are trying to write for too large of an audience. This book avoids that mistake by focusing only on those of us living in the Western United States.

The book is organized by vegetables, fruit trees, and herbs. Each edible plant is discussed on it’s own page, with at least one full color photograph. Many of the plants warranted multiple page spreads with lots of wonderful photos. For example, the entry for tomatoes contains advice about growing tomatoes but also a multi-page chart with growing tips on all sorts of varieties of tomato. Live in the high desert and need a variety that can tolerate extreme heat? They’ve got you covered. Live in a windy coastal city that doesn’t get hot enough for most tomato varieties? Rest assured, the folks at Sunset have tracked down a few varieties that will do great in your climate.

What really impressed me about the book was the herbs section. So often herb growing advice is absurdly unhelpful. How many times have you seen, “Keep soil evenly moist and provide full-sun” as advice on how to grow herbs? This book doesn’t make that mistake. Sunset provides specific varieties to grow in different climates, tasting notes (i.e. avoid Russian Tarragon, French Tarragon is best), and growing information specific to that particular herb. Not all herbs like constant moist soil. And some can grow in part shade.

If you’re considering buying or borrowing the Sunset Western Garden Book of Edibles, check out this blog post by one of the editors involved in the project. You’ll get a great glimpse of the sort of detail and seriousness with which they attacked their subject.