BOOKreviews
Grow More Food: A Vegetable Gardener’s Guide to Getting the Biggest Harvest Possible from a Space of Any Size Authors: Colin McCrate and Brad Halm Publisher: Storey Publishing List Price: $24.95 Order Link: https://amzn.to/3qrq1vF and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781635864090 Reviewer: Charlote Crook Grow More Food, the new book from Colin McCrate and Brad Halm, provides a comprehensive guide for food gardeners at any level. McCrate and Halm founded the Seattle Urban Farm Company in 2007, focused on helping and educating gardeners. Although they do not live in the Washington, DC, area, this guide is helpful for all growers, especially beginners. In Grow More Food, McCrate and Halm give interactive tools to help gardeners get their start in growing edibles. I can see the book being incredibly helpful to gardeners, but McCrate and Halm emphasize the process over anything else: “... you should approach gardening with a long view and gradually acquire skills as they become relevant and appropriate for your garden.” The book is five sections that, in themselves, act as a step-by-step guide: “Plan Ahead & Keep Records,” “Build Healthy Soil,” “Get to Know Your Plants,” “Create Efficient Systems,” and “Extend & Expand the Harvest.” Each section provides helpful tips for different aspects of food gardening. In “Plan Ahead & Keep Records,” the authors emphasize organization. “Build 18
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JANUARY 2022
Healthy Soil” devotes pages to teaching you how to interpret the results of a soil test. In the section titled, “Get to Know Your Plants,” you can read about different seed treatment and storage methods to increase the longevity of your seeds. “Create Efficient Systems” discusses various methods of irrigation, and “Extend & Expand the Harvest” teaches you how to harvest specific plants. When it comes to obstacles, the authors’ philosophy is preventive measures and continued maintenance. “Weeding will always be part of organic garden maintenance,” McCrate and Halm write. “Your goal is simply to reduce the overall production of weeds in your garden.” Although the book is colorful with many pictures, there’s lots of information packed in to it. Most of the book is text, broken up by photos and charts. The charts are, by far, the most helpful part of the book. Some charts provide information about plants’ preferred harvest methods, and others are about seed lifespan. These serve as a great, quick guide to this information. The book closes with an entire section devoted to the charts throughout the book, compiled in one go-to spot for easy access. There’s even an index. If you need to know what page the instructions for grafting are on, this is a good place to check. Whether you live in Seattle, Washington, or Washington, DC, Grow More Food will be a helpful guide to get you started on your journey growing edibles. o Charlotte Crook is a senior journalism major minoring in history at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. She was an intern during fall 2021 with Washington Gardener and is passionate about raising houseplants (to varying degrees of success).
Note: These book reviews include links to Amazon.com and BookShop.org for ordering them. Washington Gardener Magazine may receive a few cents from each order placed after you click on these links.
Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Revised and Updated Second Edition) Author: Jessica Walliser Publisher: Cool Springs Press List Price: $27.99 Order Link: https://amzn.to/3rm8Evj and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9780760371718 Reviewer: Erica H. Smith Gardeners who regularly add to their libraries are always excited by the appearance of a new Jessica Walliser book, but I will admit (echoing Walliser, who includes a list of confessions in her introduction) that I didn’t manage to acquire the original 2014 edition of this guide to beneficial insects. That means I can’t tell you which are revised and updated parts, but if you didn’t buy it before, or if your copy is tattered and worn, it’s worth getting hold of this new edition. Aside from being a knowledgeable horticulturist and experienced gardener who always does her research, Walliser is just an enticing and effective writer. I mean, any book that starts with the sentence “Slug sex is interesting stuff” has to be worth reading, right? And yes, of course she knows that slugs are neither insects nor beneficial, but that lead-in is all about how fascinating the small creatures are that inhabit our gardens. What does Walliser confess to, you may ask? That she used to be a bug hater who wielded pesticide sprays until she belatedly learned better, and that now she finds bugs more interesting than plants. Plants, it turns out, are just matter to
