BOOK REVIEW
Digest this: You can do it! By Renaldo Amato
V
egetables, Chickens and Bees: An Honest Guide to Growing Your Own Food Anywhere is an entertaining and informative look into the world of cultivating your own food. In a time where DIY culture and green living trends are on the rise, author Carson Arthur delivers an easily digestible gateway into this rewarding niche. Purely on look and feel, I give Arthur a solid 10 out of 10. Beautiful photography, easy to read typography, and material organized in a way that clearly had me (the reader) in mind. If the belief is that content is king, then readability is surely the queen. This has to be my favourite characteristic of this book. As a piece of reference material clearly aimed at beginners, I find it important the material isn’t intimidating and this turned out to be an excellent segue into this hobby; especially for the uninformed like myself. Solid backgrounds, clean colours and subheaders galore make scanning this book for relevant information a breeze. And most important of all - pictures! I love the pictures here because it pulls me into this world and they are also very useful, providing a nice frame of reference for the slew of concepts that are covered. The largest portion of this book is dedicated to growing your own vegetable garden. Topics range from growing in different levels of sunlight to everything you need to know about watering. Growing plants is a labourious process and requires a lot of know-how to execute effectively. This is where Vegetables, Chickens and Bees shines. Arthur packs a tonne of information into each section but keeps it light with humour and good story-telling. I’m a particular fan of the section where Arthur goes over 19 specific fruits and vegetables and how to take them from planting to harvest. This is what really brought the gardening portion home for
14 I outdoorlifestylemagazine.com │IMPROVE
