Micro Food Gardening

Tiny plants are poised to take over the gardening world. And no category of tiny plants is as welcome and wildly embraceable as tiny edibles. Not only are they cute as a button, but they’re tasty and nutritious too! In Micro Food Gardening, author and small-space gardening pro Jen McGuinness, introduces you to a world of miniature edible plants and dozens of DIY projects for growing them. Not everyone has room to grow a full-sized tomato plant or a melon vine that takes up more room than your car, but everyone has space for a micro tomato that tops out at the height of a Barbie doll or a dwarf watermelon with vines that won’t grow any longer than your leg. From miniature herbs and salad greens to tiny strawberry plants, baby beets, and mini cabbages, you’ll quickly discover that micro gardening offers a surprisingly diverse and delicious array of edible opportunities. Plus, with step-by-step instructions for a plethora of DIY micro food gardening projects, you’ll be up and growing in no time at all. Whether you micro garden on a high-rise balcony, an itty bitty patio, a front porch container, or even in a basket on the handlebars of your bicycle, there are mini food plants ready to start cranking out fresh produce just a few weeks after planting. Creative projects include: A window box of mini potatoes for a porch, deck, or fire escape railing A mini lettuce table that serves to both grow food and hold your beverage A compact “cake tower” of strawberry plants A wine box spice garden A mini food fountain with herbs, veggies, and edible flowers A small-space omelet garden for cooking up the perfect breakfast Plus, several indoor food-growing projects will have you enjoying homegrown micro veggies year-round, even in cold climates. With advice on plant selection and care, project plans, full color photography, and growing tips, Micro Food Gardening is here to show you the joys of growing your own fresh, organic food, no matter where you call home.

Reduce your lawn and your grocery budget. Take gardening to the next level! Would you like to grow healthy food for your table? Do you want to learn the secrets of farming even though you live in a neighborhood? Author Amy Stross talks straight about why the suburbs might be the ideal place for a small farm. In these pages you'll learn: How to make your landscape as productive as it is beautiful Why the suburbs are primed with food-growing potential How to choose the best crops for success Why you don't need the perfect yard to have a micro-farm How to use easy permaculture techniques for abundant harvests If you're ready to create a beautiful, edible yard, this book is for you. The Suburban Micro-Farm will show you how to grow your own fruits, herbs, and vegetables even on a limited schedule. From seed to harvest, this book will keep you on track so you feel a sense of accomplishment for your efforts. You'll learn gardening tricks that are essential to success, like how to deal with a 'brown thumb', how to develop and nurture healthy soil, and how to manage garden pests. Although this book has everything a new gardener needs to get started, experienced gardeners will not be disappointed. With helpful tips throughout, you will love the in-depth chapters about permaculture and making money on the micro-farm.

Micro gardening is essentially the practice of using small or limited spaces, such as patios, window sills, balconies, indoor pots, or courtyards in order to grow plants. The concept has recently gathered much press due to the attention given by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, highlighting micro gardening as a critical way in order to help more people, especially the urban poor, get more food on their tables. It also helps the environment, since a lot of the materials used are recycled from plastic containers, old trash cans, and even some old car tires.Because of the inherent lack of space, it will be tough to do what the rural gardeners do and support a full-fledged family simply on a micro-garden. But UN research also shows that a simple 11-square-foot micro-garden, when well tended, can yield as much as 10 cabbages every 90 days, 36 heads of lettuce every 60 days, 100 onions every 120 days, and 200 tomatoes in a year. Seeing these numbers, it is easy to imagine that micro gardens can be very profitable as well.

Growing vegetables in limited spaces can present a unique set of challenges - especially for the city dweller with very limited or NO garden space available.This book aims to highlight the most popular and productive of the micro-gardening techniques used by very successful urban gardeners.Ideas and inspiration that could lead to providing all the vegetables you need on an on-going basis throughout the growing season - and beyond!Here are some of the plans & ideas you will find highlighted in this book...RAISED BED GARDENINGSQUARE FOOT GARDENINGGROWING VEGETABLE IN CONTAINERSLASAGNA GARDENINGKEYHOLE GARDENINGHOT BED GARDENINGHUGELKULTUR GARDENINGAll these top techniques and more - plus great information on composting and making your own cheap, organic fertilizers and compost 'teas'

Vegetables from your own farm to your own table We all love good food, and the fresher it is, the better! And what could be fresher than farm-to-table terms than vegetables you've grown at home? The new edition of Vegetable Gardening For Dummies puts you in touch with your roots in a thousands of years old farming tradition by demonstrating how easy it is to grow your own. And there's no need to buy a farm: all you need to become a successful cultivator of the land is this book and a small plot of soil in the yard, or a container set aside for some tasty natural edibles. Add water and some care, love, and attention—et voila! In a friendly, come-relax-in-my-garden style Charlie Nardozzi—leading horticultural writer and guest expert on shows such as Martha Stewart Living Radio—shares the nutritious results of a lifetime of vegetable-growing experience to delve into the nitty-gritty of micro-farming. It's not rocket science—quite the opposite—but you do need a bit of patience before you can reap your first glorious harvest. This book shows you how to master that, as you get down and dirty with the enjoyable work of building soil, starting seeds, controlling pests, and maintaining your garden. And as your early efforts turn to green shoots, you can dig deeper into information on special tips and tricks, as well as hundreds of vegetable varieties—many of which are beautiful to behold as well as tasty to eat! Plan out your garden Know your veggies, from tomatoes to chard Keep your plants happy and healthy Harvest, store, and preserve your crops Whether your thumb is a fertile green or you've never put plant-to-pot before, this book will bring out your inner farmer: you'll find everything required to transform your garden into a self-renewing larder—and complement every meal with a crisp, healthy, home-grown treat.

Whether it's vegetables, fruits, or flowers; on a balcony or along your steps and walkways, you want information on container gardening that is foolproof and has step-by-step directions. Walliser provides scalable projects for differing needs, and give you ideas for reusing containers you have around your home. She covers the importance of drainage, irrigation, and other watering concerns for a successful garden.

The Low-Tech, No-Grow-Lights Approach to Abundant Harvest Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers good news: with nothing more than a cupboard and a windowsill, you can grow all the fresh salad greens you need for the winter months (or throughout the entire year) with no lights, no pumps, and no greenhouse. Longtime gardener Peter Burke was tired of the growing season ending with the first frost, but due to his busy work schedule and family life, didn't have the time or interest in high-input grow lights or greenhouses. Most techniques for growing what are commonly referred to as "microgreens" left him feeling overwhelmed and uninterested. There had to be a simpler way to grow greens for his family indoors. After some research and diligent experimenting, Burke discovered he was right--there was a way! And it was even easier than he ever could have hoped, and the greens more nutrient packed. He didn't even need a south-facing window, and he already had most of the needed supplies just sitting in his pantry. The result: healthy, homegrown salad greens at a fraction of the cost of buying them at the market. The secret: start them in the dark. Growing "Soil Sprouts"--Burke's own descriptive term for sprouted seeds grown in soil as opposed to in jars--employs a method that encourages a long stem without expansive roots, and provides delicious salad greens in just seven to ten days, way earlier than any other method, with much less work. Indeed, of all the ways to grow immature greens, this is the easiest and most productive technique. Forget about grow lights and heat lamps! This book is a revolutionary and inviting guide for both first-time and experienced gardeners in rural or urban environments. All you need is a windowsill or two. In fact, Burke has grown up to six pounds of greens per day using just the windowsills in his kitchen! Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening offers detailed step-by-step instructions to mastering this method (hint: it's impossible not to succeed, it's so easy!), tools and accessories to have on hand, seeds and greens varieties, soil and compost, trays and planters, shelving, harvest and storage, recipes, scaling up to serve local markets, and much more.

HOW TO GROW VEGETABLES IN FOREST GARDENS OR SMALL SPACES USING ORGANIC MIRO-GARDENING TECHNIQUES *LARGE PRINT - LARGE SIZE EDITION PAPERBACK (11" X 8.5") Growing Vegetables using micro-gardening techniques, means that it is possible to grow your own food in a way that guarantees best quality produce even if you only have a small area to grow. This introduction to 8 micro-gardening ideas, means that the reader is well informed of the choices available, and the school teacher able to teach systems that will expand and inform the minds of gardening students eager to learn outdoor self-sufficiency skills.. Here are just some of the things you will learn about in this book... Raised Bed Gardening: Possibly one of the best known and written about gardening systems.Easy and productive - an absolute must for anyone wanting to expand their food production. Foot Square Gardening: An exceptional vegetable growing system that offers the user highly productive vegetable growing from equal areas of only 1 foot square. Keyhole Gardening: A little-known but productive system used with great success in the African continent and promoted widely by the UK charity sendacow.org. Lasagna Gardening: This system using an inventive way to grow vegetables in a growing compound made from layered organic waste and cardboard. No need for artificial fertilizers - this system feeds itself! Hot Bed Gardening: Excellent for increasing the growing window as it heats the soil naturally, meaning you can plant earlier and grow excellent vegetables. Hugelkultur Gardens: How to build your own drought-resistant garden from a pile of old sticks!This growing medium feeds and waters itself - check it out... Trees & Shrubs: A selection of common trees and shrubs that can produce fruit, give shade, offer protection, and inflict injury! All this and much more besides in this introduction to micro-gardening for the urban or school garden.