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Don't Throw In the Trowel!: Vegetable Gardening Month by Month
At last, help for home food gardeners. The simple, month-by-month layout of Don’t Throw in the Trowel will help gardeners grow a bounty of vegetables, fruits, and herbs. Grow luscious tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, melons, and more, and enjoy all the fresh produce (and give the surplus to family and friends) that your garden grows using these easy tips. Don’t Throw in the Trowel: A Month-by-Month Vegetable Gardening Guide is a fun read for every locavore who wants to cart tomatoes out of the garden by the wagonful.
Even if you’ve never been a farmer or a gardener before, this vegetable gardening book covers everything you need to know to get started. Here you can find specific information about starting seeds, transplanting, mulching, organic fertilizers, dealing with pest and disease problems, compost, and of course, information about different vegetables and helpful advice on how to grow them. You can also find information about square foot gardening, beneficial insects (and insect pests), easy ways to keep weeds down, and ways to extent the growing season into the winter months using cold frames and floating row covers.
What’s more, the methods used in this book are those to save time (and your poor back and joints). Gardening can hurt sometimes – as the author can attest after having been felled by a bad back during her horticulturing days. This book is full of ways to keep you from ending up the way she did. Many organic methods actually help make gardening easier. For instance, putting down a thick layer of mulch early in the year helps you keep weeds down, reduce watering, add organic matter to the soil, and keep the plants cool in the summer heat. Grow heirloom vegetables for a reliable, colorful crop – and you can keep using the seeds from these plants years after year.
Most of all, this book also leads you on a month-by-month tour of the vegetable garden, so you can keep up with what needs to be done this month – and look ahead so you can be ready for next month.
It’s always good to grow your own vegetables, especially with concerns about how far grocery store produce is shipped, concerns about the environment, and concerns about the future. But there’s also a new understanding of how good it is to get outside and work with plants, and how delicious those first sun-warmed tomatoes are, and how good a newly-picked strawberry tastes, and how astonished your toddler is when she pulls up her first carrot. There’s nothing on earth that can beat that.
Review: "What a delightful read this is! This lady certainly knows her onions! There is a wealth of practical knowledge to be had in this book. Not having kept a veggie garden for a number of years, It both reminded things I already knew and informed me of many things I didn't. It is an ideal guide for both new-comers to the gardening world, as well as established gardeners." -- Ty from Wales
Even if you’ve never been a farmer or a gardener before, this vegetable gardening book covers everything you need to know to get started. Here you can find specific information about starting seeds, transplanting, mulching, organic fertilizers, dealing with pest and disease problems, compost, and of course, information about different vegetables and helpful advice on how to grow them. You can also find information about square foot gardening, beneficial insects (and insect pests), easy ways to keep weeds down, and ways to extent the growing season into the winter months using cold frames and floating row covers.
What’s more, the methods used in this book are those to save time (and your poor back and joints). Gardening can hurt sometimes – as the author can attest after having been felled by a bad back during her horticulturing days. This book is full of ways to keep you from ending up the way she did. Many organic methods actually help make gardening easier. For instance, putting down a thick layer of mulch early in the year helps you keep weeds down, reduce watering, add organic matter to the soil, and keep the plants cool in the summer heat. Grow heirloom vegetables for a reliable, colorful crop – and you can keep using the seeds from these plants years after year.
Most of all, this book also leads you on a month-by-month tour of the vegetable garden, so you can keep up with what needs to be done this month – and look ahead so you can be ready for next month.
It’s always good to grow your own vegetables, especially with concerns about how far grocery store produce is shipped, concerns about the environment, and concerns about the future. But there’s also a new understanding of how good it is to get outside and work with plants, and how delicious those first sun-warmed tomatoes are, and how good a newly-picked strawberry tastes, and how astonished your toddler is when she pulls up her first carrot. There’s nothing on earth that can beat that.
Review: "What a delightful read this is! This lady certainly knows her onions! There is a wealth of practical knowledge to be had in this book. Not having kept a veggie garden for a number of years, It both reminded things I already knew and informed me of many things I didn't. It is an ideal guide for both new-comers to the gardening world, as well as established gardeners." -- Ty from Wales
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
177 pages, ebook
Published October 19, 2016
168 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Melinda R. Cordell
50 books40 followersNoblebright fantasy author and writer of gardening books. Melinda R. Cordell has written a truckload of YA novels, including the Dragonriders of Skala series (like Game of Thrones, only with Vikings).
A former city horticulturist and a long-time garden writer, Melinda has also written 11 books in the Easy-Growing Gardening series with more to come.
Melinda lives in northwest Missouri with her husband and two kids, the best little family to walk the earth, and is writing about 24 books at once, fueled by passion and also caffeine.
If you want to keep up with her, you can subscribe to her newsletter, buy her 27 books, or drop her a friendly note at rosefiend@gmail.com.
A former city horticulturist and a long-time garden writer, Melinda has also written 11 books in the Easy-Growing Gardening series with more to come.
Melinda lives in northwest Missouri with her husband and two kids, the best little family to walk the earth, and is writing about 24 books at once, fueled by passion and also caffeine.
If you want to keep up with her, you can subscribe to her newsletter, buy her 27 books, or drop her a friendly note at rosefiend@gmail.com.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 30, 2018
Pretty good.
This book was okay. It was written for those in zone 5 gardening areas, and I'm in zone 7. I was still able to take away from this book some tips and pointers.
With that being said, the author did repeat herself many times, which is a pet peeve of mine. Also, she went into talking about first aid at a couple of points in the book, which I really did not see a point of. (I guess living in the south, we already know how to deal with heat stroke and exhaustion.)
This book would be good for someone just starting to garden.
This book was okay. It was written for those in zone 5 gardening areas, and I'm in zone 7. I was still able to take away from this book some tips and pointers.
With that being said, the author did repeat herself many times, which is a pet peeve of mine. Also, she went into talking about first aid at a couple of points in the book, which I really did not see a point of. (I guess living in the south, we already know how to deal with heat stroke and exhaustion.)
This book would be good for someone just starting to garden.
February 9, 2018
Don't Throw in the Towel! is an enjoyable book with numerous nuggets of advice useful to a novice gardener and likely to a more experience gardener as well. I've gardened in some fashion for about 40 years and had a few Ah! moments reading the book. The month by month list of advice is a good way to ease someone into gardening without the person being overwhelmed. The activities by month will have to be adjusted to the climate and growing zone of the reader, but the concepts can be used well through most of the USA and southern Canada. The various images from old seed catalogs are a nice touch.
June 23, 2017
Green Thumb
This month-by-month gardening guide is full of tips, insects, to do lists, and vegetable plants that will help with gardening whether you are a novice or a master gardener. Author Cordell, covers seed germination, ratio of plants to area, insect and weeds, tool maintenance, soils and more. For maximum enjoyment, read this book on a cold snowy winter day, when you can take notes and plan for the arrival of spring.
I received this book through a random InstraFreebie giveaway. Although encouraged as a courtesy to provide feedback, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
This month-by-month gardening guide is full of tips, insects, to do lists, and vegetable plants that will help with gardening whether you are a novice or a master gardener. Author Cordell, covers seed germination, ratio of plants to area, insect and weeds, tool maintenance, soils and more. For maximum enjoyment, read this book on a cold snowy winter day, when you can take notes and plan for the arrival of spring.
I received this book through a random InstraFreebie giveaway. Although encouraged as a courtesy to provide feedback, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
February 1, 2018
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Don't know where to start in the Garden, start with this book!
This was a fun and entertaining educational book. I loved the "just life" stories the author included through out the book. Setting the journey up by month, helps you know how/where to start and think ahead. I live in California, so some of the specifics might be a bit different based on my climate, but overall is a great starting ground to start planning! A great read, and I'm curious to check out other books by Melinda as well.
Don't know where to start in the Garden, start with this book!
This was a fun and entertaining educational book. I loved the "just life" stories the author included through out the book. Setting the journey up by month, helps you know how/where to start and think ahead. I live in California, so some of the specifics might be a bit different based on my climate, but overall is a great starting ground to start planning! A great read, and I'm curious to check out other books by Melinda as well.
July 6, 2018
Concrete tips and advice for the novice to the experienced gardener. Although much of the material is taken from the author's newspaper columns and there is a bit of repetition as a result, the suggestions and information are well thought out and practical. I will be using this book in years to come.
January 27, 2022
Though I live in a different state, I found this book to have several useful tips.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews