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How to Become a Gardener: Find Empowerment in Creating Your Own Food Security
Take charge of your family’s food security by learning how to grow your own fruits, vegetables, and herbs—and right along with them, you’ll nurture your own inner strength, too.
Food insecurity affects millions of people worldwide. Without access to well-stocked stores or nutritious, fresh foods, those living in “food deserts” face more hunger and health issues than communities where a diversity of food is plentiful. With the inspiration and knowledge found in How to Become a Gardener, self-reliance and food autonomy are within reach for anyone willing to get a little dirt under their nails and dig in.
Author, health coach, and food security advocate Ashlie Thomas of The Mocha Gardener serves as an experienced and encouraging guide on your journey toward self-empowerment through the cultivation of your own homegrown harvests. With a spirit of respect for others, for nature, and for community, Ashlie walks you step by step through not only the practical ins and outs of gardening—from seed starting to making the harvest—but also through the personal challenges and lessons found within the act of gardening itself. Regardless of whether you only have space to grow in a few pots or you have enough room for multiple raised beds or an in-ground garden, you’ll find freedom and wellness through the food you grow, along with patience, compassion, and perspective.
How to Become a Gardener focuses on:
What makes a space a garden and how to get one started
How gardens can be a symbol of resilience in challenging times
Finding what motivates you to grow and using it to cultivate nutrient-dense, homegrown harvests
Why reclaiming your food authority is one of the most empowering things you can do for you and your family
The importance of finding personal freedom by growing your own garden-to-table food
How the garden grows you just as much as you grow the garden
How to Become a Gardener is about growing food, yes. But it’s also about finding your strength through gardening, reclaiming your food authority, discovering your motivation, and learning that no matter what your garden yields, it’s always worth the wait.
Food insecurity affects millions of people worldwide. Without access to well-stocked stores or nutritious, fresh foods, those living in “food deserts” face more hunger and health issues than communities where a diversity of food is plentiful. With the inspiration and knowledge found in How to Become a Gardener, self-reliance and food autonomy are within reach for anyone willing to get a little dirt under their nails and dig in.
Author, health coach, and food security advocate Ashlie Thomas of The Mocha Gardener serves as an experienced and encouraging guide on your journey toward self-empowerment through the cultivation of your own homegrown harvests. With a spirit of respect for others, for nature, and for community, Ashlie walks you step by step through not only the practical ins and outs of gardening—from seed starting to making the harvest—but also through the personal challenges and lessons found within the act of gardening itself. Regardless of whether you only have space to grow in a few pots or you have enough room for multiple raised beds or an in-ground garden, you’ll find freedom and wellness through the food you grow, along with patience, compassion, and perspective.
How to Become a Gardener focuses on:
What makes a space a garden and how to get one started
How gardens can be a symbol of resilience in challenging times
Finding what motivates you to grow and using it to cultivate nutrient-dense, homegrown harvests
Why reclaiming your food authority is one of the most empowering things you can do for you and your family
The importance of finding personal freedom by growing your own garden-to-table food
How the garden grows you just as much as you grow the garden
How to Become a Gardener is about growing food, yes. But it’s also about finding your strength through gardening, reclaiming your food authority, discovering your motivation, and learning that no matter what your garden yields, it’s always worth the wait.
- GenresGardeningNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2022
8 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 14, 2022
Ashlie provides a gentle introduction for new gardeners along with her best tips for success (and advice for how to manage failure). She uses stories to make her point, which are engaging and make for a delightful read.
November 29, 2022
Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
How to Become a Gardener is a no-nonsense, well written, beginner accessible guide to getting started with food gardening and improving personal and community food security written and curated by Ashlie Thomas. Released 1st Nov 2022 by Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint, it's 208 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formast.
Food security and transportation costs and availability are real and immediate concerns for the vast majority of people worldwide. We only have to look at the supply issues of the last few years to see how vulnerable we are to interruptions and resource scarcity. It's not possible to be self-sufficient with toilet paper and toothpaste (well, not really), but providing for part of our food needs ourselves is a great way to reduce some stress, gain valuable skills, and gain a fun and relaxing hobby.
The author has a great encouraging writing style and she is willing to share her experience to help other would-be gardeners improve their outcomes. The book contains tangible advice for starting, sourcing materials, planning, seed starting, growing, harvesting, troubleshooting and compensating for less than ideal results, but it -also- contains a lot of useful and thought provoking philosophy and interesting info for ruminating about our consumerist lifestyle, our definition of community, and how we can be less dependent on unstable supply chains for our daily nutrition. Plus it's good fun and healthy exercise.
Five stars. This would be a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, activity groups, community garden collections, and home use. There is an emphasis on urban and to a lesser degree suburban gardeners, but there are valuable takeaways for gardeners in other situations.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
How to Become a Gardener is a no-nonsense, well written, beginner accessible guide to getting started with food gardening and improving personal and community food security written and curated by Ashlie Thomas. Released 1st Nov 2022 by Quarto on their Cool Springs Press imprint, it's 208 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formast.
Food security and transportation costs and availability are real and immediate concerns for the vast majority of people worldwide. We only have to look at the supply issues of the last few years to see how vulnerable we are to interruptions and resource scarcity. It's not possible to be self-sufficient with toilet paper and toothpaste (well, not really), but providing for part of our food needs ourselves is a great way to reduce some stress, gain valuable skills, and gain a fun and relaxing hobby.
The author has a great encouraging writing style and she is willing to share her experience to help other would-be gardeners improve their outcomes. The book contains tangible advice for starting, sourcing materials, planning, seed starting, growing, harvesting, troubleshooting and compensating for less than ideal results, but it -also- contains a lot of useful and thought provoking philosophy and interesting info for ruminating about our consumerist lifestyle, our definition of community, and how we can be less dependent on unstable supply chains for our daily nutrition. Plus it's good fun and healthy exercise.
Five stars. This would be a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, activity groups, community garden collections, and home use. There is an emphasis on urban and to a lesser degree suburban gardeners, but there are valuable takeaways for gardeners in other situations.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
October 23, 2022
Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this ARC! I loved this book. It was structured so well, the images were beautiful and the tables were informative. I loved how the author emphasized the "why" of gardening, not just the how and the community aspect of gardens was really great to see. Food security as resilience was a great chapter and it really honed in on the concepts of how taking control of (at least some) aspects of the food you consume can help in your journey to be food secure. The perspectives of Gardener inputs throughout really tied together the book and provided unique insights. The final chapters of this book on empowerment, lessons learned, and appreciating the garden were just the icing on the cake. Fantastic book, a fantastic read.
December 5, 2022
As someone who owns quite a few gardening books, I have to say I enjoyed How to Become a Gardener: Find Empowerment in Creating Your Own Food Security. The book is well-organized, allowing you to pick wherever you want to go and start, making it an excellent choice for beginners and experts. While the book is filled with beautiful pictures, it also has quite a bit of information on various aspects of gardening. I love how she breaks up the chapters to help you understand every aspect of gardening and why it is important, going from planning your gardening to seed selection and even nutritional diversity. My only complaint is that some areas seem a bit needlessly wordy; it adds a story aspect to gardening for those trying to read the book from beginning to end.
April 24, 2023
How To Be a Gardener is possibly one of the most useful gardening books that I have come across, particularly for a complete beginner like me.
It’s written in an easy to understand style, which again is good for the inexperienced among us.
I really liked that the author included the reasons why people might grow what they do. Sometimes it’s about the space you have or it can be heavily influenced by your background and culture. I have never come across this in a gardening book before, but upon reading this, it occurred to me that it’s a consideration that’s very important.
Overall the book is well written, informative and a good read and I highly recommend it.
My thanks to the author, the publisher and to NetGalley for gifting me this ARC and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
It’s written in an easy to understand style, which again is good for the inexperienced among us.
I really liked that the author included the reasons why people might grow what they do. Sometimes it’s about the space you have or it can be heavily influenced by your background and culture. I have never come across this in a gardening book before, but upon reading this, it occurred to me that it’s a consideration that’s very important.
Overall the book is well written, informative and a good read and I highly recommend it.
My thanks to the author, the publisher and to NetGalley for gifting me this ARC and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
December 29, 2025
I listened to this book on Spotify as I want to start growing a garden this year. It gave a lot of good motivation and reasons to start gardening, but not a ton of practical advice about actually growing things. I was inspired by the author and her testimony and feel that I will be better gardener for listening to this. I do not know if the paper book would be worth buying since it did not have any specific guidance on growing things that most beginners don’t already know (plan ahead, plant things you’ll enjoy, look up what grows in your area, duh???). However I may have slept through some chapters since I did listen to it and not read it lol
June 13, 2023
Things I really enjoyed about this audiobook:
That it comes from the point of view of creating more food security and access.
That it is centered in the South -- not an area I've ever tried to garden in, and cool to learn about.
That it acknowledges the ways food and gardening reflects and interacts with cultural traditions.
it's a pretty basic guide, but I love how Thomas breaks ideas down and presents them, and I enjoyed her very encouraging voice -- there's lots of useful info here.
That it comes from the point of view of creating more food security and access.
That it is centered in the South -- not an area I've ever tried to garden in, and cool to learn about.
That it acknowledges the ways food and gardening reflects and interacts with cultural traditions.
it's a pretty basic guide, but I love how Thomas breaks ideas down and presents them, and I enjoyed her very encouraging voice -- there's lots of useful info here.
November 9, 2022
Two pages into the introduction, I was already completely hooked. In this book, @the.mocha.gardener captures the tangible (you get tomatoes!), as well as the intangible, magic of growing food. I love that she goes well beyond "practical" issues such as how we fill our tummies, to intrinsic benefits of healing our bodies and environment, and nourishing our souls, by growing a garden.
March 13, 2024
This is a definitive look and approach to how anyone can get started on their journey to food security and equity. I’m so thankful for the wide connections considered and traced through through this text. What an inspirational story and guide for what, when, and how to plant.
Highly recommend for all gardeners and plant lovers!
Highly recommend for all gardeners and plant lovers!
October 29, 2022
An interesting and intriguing book about gardening, the impact on the environment and what it means to us.
Love how it is organised and made me reflect.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
Love how it is organised and made me reflect.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine
August 3, 2023
Ashlie Thomas writes a foundational gardening book for beginners like me! She shares her own experiences, plus offers lots of tips, options, and information that I need to know to start my gardening journey. A must read and a great addition to a gardener's book collection.
February 13, 2024
I liked her blend of practical tips and philosophy about gardening, food security and gratitude. I’m sure it would be lovely to spend an afternoon with her in her garden.
April 27, 2024
This was an amazing book about beginning a garden. I'm not a beginner but felt inspired and retraced my own garden journey. Beautiful pictures and realistic advice. Absolutely a great book.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews