BOOKreviews

The First-Time Homesteader: A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Starting and Loving Your New Homestead Author: Jessica Sowards Publisher: Cool Springs Press List Price: $26.99 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3tJux9N and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9780760372357 Reviewer: Brandie Bland In The First-Time Homesteader, author Jessica Sowards delivers an authentic and warm welcome to the world of homesteading for those who are ready to ditch the pollution of urban living for the serene hard work of the homestead. “I don’t want to talk to you about a trend or a fad. I want to talk to you about a worthy lifestyle,” Sowards said. Sowards structures the book into eight step-by-step chapters dedicated to what you’d need to start your own homestead, from keeping bees to yard birds. The only chapter that doesn’t adhere to this format is the first one, which details the one thing every person needs before starting anything: a plan. Because let’s face it, starting a homestead is not easy. “Setting up your first homestead comes with many joys and many challenges. Whether you’re in the dreaming stage or coming to the table with land already in hand,” Sowards said. In Chapter One, Sowards focuses on connecting with the reader and seeking the mutual understanding that either you’re dedicated to starting a homestead or you’re not. Homesteading is more than being able to grow food or raise animals; it’s about the intimate respect of nature and all the resources we as humans are freely provided by the Earth. Sowards started her South Carolina homestead with her husband Jeremiah and documents some of it in the book and on her social media accounts: Roots and Refuge Farm. Throughout the rest of the book, Sowards homes in on the nuances of homesteading and offers advice and personal experiences from the beginning of her journey. Her best advice is to make sure you have the proper tools for all areas of the homestead. Sowards’ favorite area is the kitchen and one of her favorite tools is an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. Personal as well as informative book this is a family scrapbook of memories documenting Sowards’ commitment to passing on her homestead knowledge to the next generation of homesteaders. o

Brandie Bland is a senior multi-platform journalism major in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is an intern this fall with Washington Gardener.

Dead Cereus Author: Kira Seamon Publisher: Amazon Press List Price: $7.99 Order Link: https://amzn.to/3OoXReV Reviewer: Jaime Breeden Put yourself in the mind of a high school student. You’ve got a lot to worry about that no one takes as seriously as you do, things are constantly changing and developing both inside and outside, and you feel like the world’s got a “wanted dead or alive” poster with your face plastered on it. That anxiety of adolescence is the very thing books like Kira Seamon’s novel Dead Cereus seek to cure, offering an opportunity for kids to take a break from their own trials and root for an underdog. The story follows Holly, a horticultural student at Shellesby College aiming for a big internship in opposition to her rival Ivy and Ivy’s father Professor Berkley, who seems to have it out for her. Reliant on scholarships and constantly getting into trouble, Holly is in jeopardy, but so is the life of others on campus as a string of murders haunts the college. It’s up to Holly and her grad student boyfriend William to crack the case without getting Holly expelled. This is Seamon’s debut novel, so I think it best to offer some compliments before tearing into the problems. For one, she has a knack for imagery. The ornate descriptions of the flowers adorning the greenhouse and the way scenes are described down to their smallest detail leaves plenty of material for the theater of the mind to craft a stunning stage. It’s also not short on sharp turns in the plot, often leaving little time to wrap your head around goings on before plunging into the next event. And the story is fairly friendly, despite the subject matter. There’s mention of death and murder, but no gruesome details. The whole story feels like the script to a good Disney channel original movie if you grew up with those. But like any first foray, this book has room for improvement. For one, the story, overall, doesn’t offer very much substance. The “mystery” isn’t terribly difficult to work through, seemingly no more than a string of reveals and twists that either create or fix problems instantly whenever necessary. Most of the characters have no clear arc, aside from Ivy to some degree. Holly herself gets the worst of this, coming

off as childish, repeatedly told how to improve and succeed despite ignoring any advice from others. And the book had several sequences that go on for far too long or have logical/editorial inconsistencies.

Dead Cereus is, in all honesty, a bit of an easy punching bag. The plot’s thin conflicts are eliminated too quickly to build stakes, the willingness to give detail often trunks into tedious repetition of unnecessary details, and in several places, there are glaring editing mistakes or logical inconsistencies. Despite that, it has an exquisite eye for imagery, it knows how to make big swings with its story, and grants the reader a charming if naive, escapist fantasy that’s kind despite the context surrounding it. It’s not the right fit for someone like me: a student in the last year of college preparing to face the cynical world outside academia, with bills, hourly wages, and workplace politics. But for the young person who just wants an adventure, a plucky young girl to root for, and twist after twist, it’s a fabulous treat that’s greater than its foibles.

Jaime Breeden is a fourth-year journalism student at the University of Maryland, College Park and an intern this fall session with Washington Gardener.

The Seven-Step Homestead, A Guide for Creating the Backyard Microfarm of Your Dreams Author: Leah M. Webb Publisher: Storey Publishing List Price: $24.99 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3AvXDgi and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781635864113 Reviewer: Kaylee Steck The Seven-Step Homestead is Leah Webb’s second book motivated by her passion to provide healthy food for her family. To her love of growing food, Webb brings knowledge of soil and food systems, honed with eight years of landscaping experience and degrees in environmental ecology and public health. In her latest book, she shows how curiosity mixed with motivation, practical knowledge, and a large dose of patience can help you achieve a diverse growing space fertilized by your own flock of chickens. While Webb thinking about adding fruit trees, the author gives you a head start with a fruit variety selection checklist, a table of general spacing recommendations for select trees and shrubs, and stepby-step instructions for planting and pruning fruits. With each chapter, Webb’s breadth of experience becomes more apparent. From building beds to designing edible landscapes, this book covers a lot of ground. The photographs and illustrations add inspiration for imagining your future homestead. If you enjoyed the 2018 documentary film “The Biggest Little Farm,” you will love this book. Get yourself a copy and don’t be afraid to think big, but start small! o

intends this guide for a range of ability levels, she reminds us that developing productive garden beds requires multiple years of commitment. Plan to work through the seven steps slowly! Each of the seven chapters corresponds to one of the homesteading steps. The first two chapters focus on mastering one or two small beds, then expanding your cultivation space and introducing more diversity. The third and fourth chapters explore options for planting your space, from fruit trees and shrubs to edible and flowering perennials. The fifth and sixth chapters explore topics related to sustainability, such as four-season growing and storage crops. The final chapter considers the benefits and responsibilities of raising chickens on the homestead. If all this seems overwhelming, the pages are filled with plenty of stepby-step instructions for a variety of projects, such as creating beds using sheet mulching, staking single-stem tomatoes, and constructing trellises. Webb also encourages the reader with personal stories about failures in the garden: “I don’t believe in brown thumbs. I believe that people give up prematurely. I have been gardening for 20 years…[and] I [still] screw something up then have to wait an entire year to try again.” For readers who have already mastered a few small beds, this book will offer support as you add more growing area, develop your planting skills, diversify your plantings, and learn about soil aeration and mulching. If you are

Kaylee Steck is a DC Master Gardener trainee and a volunteer gardener at Lafayette Park in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington, DC. She first gained experience with plants as an apprentice on a small berry farm in Ashfield, Massachusetts. She works with plant medicine to support overall vitality as a holistic fertility awareness educator. You can learn more about her work on Instagram @capitalfertilityawareness.

The Kitchen Garden: Sowing, Growing, and Cooking for the Garden Enthusiast Author: Lucy Mora Publisher: Thames & Hudson List Price: $29.95 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3AujfK0 and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781760762902 Reviewer: Marsha Douma I feel the author accomplished her objective of providing the beginning gardener with the essential information about the needs and characteristics of most of the vegetables and fruits grown in today’s gardens in a very readable way. Most of the book is about vegetables, organized by planting seasons—spring, summer, fall, and winter. There is also a section for growing fruits, berries, and herbs. Sprinkled throughout are interesting recipes, which do give the book a more homey feel, as opposed to a more technical approach.

The plants in each chapter are listed alphabetically and all this information is summarized in an easy-to-use planting chart at the back of the book. This organization makes it easy to find information without having to read through entire chapters. For every plant, in addition to the usual detailed information about how to grow it, there is a useful sidebar summarizing the seasons to sow and harvest, the growing time, spacing, sun requirements, frost tolerance, and plants it likes to grow near and those it dislikes.

Interestingly, the book includes the author’s advice for beginner gardeners: to start with plants from the nursery, instead of growing them from seeds, which is another level of complexity. Since the author is Australian, some of her turns of phrases may be unfamiliar to American readers. Additionally, while temperatures are in Fahrenheit, measurements are in the metric system—but there is a conversion chart at the back of book. Also included is some general information about how to get your garden plot started, insect and critter pests, composting, and miscellaneous. home remedies to solve various garden problems. She also has a page describing how to re-grow some vegetables from their tops. I think I will have “a go of that.” In summary, this is a visually inviting book full of easy-to-access information to help make gardening successful for anyone. o

Marsha Douma is a retired dentist and lifelong gardener, who also enjoys swimming, tennis, and playing the piano. She lives in Rockville, MD.

American Roots: Lessons and Inspiration from the Designers Reimagining Our Home Gardens Authors: Nick McCullough, Allison McCullough, and Teresa Woodard Publisher: Timber Press List Price: $40.00 Order Links: https://amzn.to/3EP9Cbm and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781643261164 Reviewer: Jim Dronenburg This book is a collection of descriptions of 20 designers’ gardens across the country. Organized by regions, these are far more photographs than text. The photos are very good and illustrate, for the most part, gardens in context, with some vignette/closeup shots of sculptural items and hardscape, as well as plants. The gardens are divided into Midwest, East Coast, South, and West (including the Pacific NW), starting with the authors’ own garden in Columbus, OH. Each garden has a section for ideas (here, Scouting for Garden Finds; others include Designing with Annuals, Creating Vignettes, etc.) and each garden has a section of Favorite Plants (a one-page square of nine photos of individual plants, with identifying captions). Needless to say, some of the California and PNW gardens contain things that would not fare very well in the DC region (sigh). But the book is chockfull of ideas, some only applicable to a large space but most quite doable to almost any garden. There are enough pictures of these ideas, vignettes and hardscapes (and always the owners, and the occasional pet) to keep any reader happy. If they have sense, they will jot down what they see in a particular picture, for possible future applications in their own garden spaces. One caveat here is that these are all design professionals’ gardens, and as such, are their “billboards”. There is a lot of work involved in making a garden picture-perfect that the book doesn’t mention. To these people, it’s a given. A lot of money is involved, too. That doesn’t matter. We need not copy what is on page such-and-such exactly, but we can use the ideas. If you have a slope, for instance, you can still have a flat water feature (page 158): Take the concept and run with it. Paving? The book crawls with ideas that can be copied. Plants? You can’t have ‘em all, but take what interests you and look it up, then get it. There are three pages in the back of the book of sources for plants, furniture, events, plant sales, tools, and horticultural organizations. Understand that this is a scattergun approach, trying to cover the whole country. It’s a starting point. Some of the ideas will not resonate with everyone. Page 47 is an example of that. It presents a path that is one row of pavers, almost covered with encroaching plants. Nice to look at, but devilish to walk through without damaging something. But then other pictures, other places, show magnificent wide paths, beds with all-season interest, beds with what appears to be a magnificent one-shot show… something for everyone. There are occasionally lawns, and there is a great deal of kowtowing to the current fashion of “meadows.” There are formal and informal spaces. Overall, this is a coffee table book, or more accurately, a book to read next to one’s computer for easily looking up of things and ideas. Well worth getting. o

Jim Dronenburg is a retired accountant and now gardens full-time in Knoxville, MD.