My Backyard Garden

by Carol Lerner

Explains how to start your own vegetable garden and how to cope with common problems, describing the round of activities from month to month throughout the year

48 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

Reviews

[Shanna Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This kids' gardening manual is a big step up from the beginning reader's In My Garden: A Child's Gardening Book. Its picture-book format and detailed illustrations make the basics of starting a vegetable garden accessible to kids. It provides all the basic principles and practices they need, and lays out a month-by-month guide to success in a starter garden.

The book is full of good illustrations that enliven the high-density text. These include a diagram explaining how pollinated flowers produce fruit and a diagram of two sample garden plots, which are reiterated with different plantings through the growing season. There is also a simple soil test to try out and directions for building a compost heap, an explanation of how to schedule planting using a frost-date chart, some drawings of garden plants (good, bad and ugly) in varying stages of maturity, and a chart naming garden pests and how to combat them.

This attractive, accessible guide provides almost enough information for an enterprising older child to start a garden project without adult help, although a more encyclopedic resource is likely to be needed before the project is complete. If read aloud in small portions to early-elementary audience it can be an excellent tool to help explain gardening practices.

[Shelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an introduction to gardening for children probably eight and older. It goes through different plants, different months, different bugs, different types of soil, etc....in a helpful way.
it is not a fun story it is very nonfiction