Why Grow That When You Can Grow This

It's a tired turn of phrase, but the grass is always greener on the other side. And for gardeners, it's not just the grass—it's the flowers, the shrubs, and the trees. No longer! Pining to grow lilac but lack the full sun? Try the fragrant pink and white flowers of Korean spice viburnum. Love the drama of canna but need something hardier? Try the bold foliage of variegated fleece flower. Why Grow That When You Can Grow This? offers hundreds of all-star alternatives that replace—and often outshine—popular problem plants. Garden designer Andrew Keys makes it easier than ever to skip over the fussy plant prima donnas and move toward the equally gorgeous understudies. Each profile shows the problem plant and offers three alternatives that include three or more of the original plant's characteristics—hardiness, shape, color, texture, light, and size. With this fun and accessible guide, you can discover the secret to choosing the plants destined to be the new stars of your garden.

You’re excited to plant your first vegetable garden—but where to start? In The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables, you'll find the answers you're looking for. Homesteader Jessica Sowards, the warm and energetic host of YouTube’s Roots and Refuge Farm, is the perfect teacher for new gardeners, offering not just know-how but inspiration and time-management tips for success. Before you sink your hands into the soil, she’ll answer all those questions rolling around inside your head: Where do I put my new garden? How do I prepare the soil? What vegetables should I plant? Is it better to start new plants from seed or should I buy transplants? What about watering, feeding, and taking care of my garden? What do I do if bugs show up? There are no stupid questions here. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all. Not only will you learn how to prepare, plant, and tend your first vegetable garden, you’ll also learn: How to design an eco-friendly layout How to grow with the seasons How to maximize your harvest, even if you only grow in a small space Jessica wants your first food-growing experience to be a positive one, and she’s prepared to go the distance to make sure tending the earth becomes your new favorite hobby. A single growing season is all it takes to fall in love with growing your own healthy, organic, nutrient-dense food. With Jessica as your guide, you’ll soon discover all the satisfactions, challenges, and great joys of growing your own food garden. This book is part of The First-Time Gardener's Guides series from Cool Springs Press, which also includes The First-Time Gardener: Growing Plants and Flowers. Each book in The First-Time Gardener's Guides series is aimed at beginner gardeners and offers clear, fact-based information that's presented in a friendly and accessible way, including step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations throughout.

A first garden story board book that reveals how plants grow with lift-the-flaps and a pullout height chart. Teach your child how a tiny seed grows into a flower in this fascinating lift-the-flap garden story. A pullout height chart ends the book--a great way for children to remember how a sunflower grows, and to measure how fast your child grows, too! Through illustrations, photography, and flaps, sixteen delightful board book pages reveal the wonder of how plants grow as you follow the story of a mystery seed. How was it planted? What does it need? What will it become? As days go by, it's hard to imagine the tiny shoot will ever grow into a big, strong plant. Could it magically become the tallest of all the garden flowers? Flaps unfold to show plants growing, creatures hiding, and what's happening underground. The book includes very simple gardening projects and facts about garden creatures (which ones are good for plants, and which ones are bad), and children will find out what a pollinator is, and how to attract pollinators to the garden. The perfect gift for aspiring gardeners, complete with a height chart.

Now that you’ve mastered gardening basics, you want to enjoy your bounty year-round, right? Homegrown Pantry picks up where beginning gardening books leave off, with in-depth profiles of the 55 most popular crops — including beans, beets, squash, tomatoes, and much more — to keep your pantry stocked throughout the year. Each vegetable profile highlights how many plants to grow for a year’s worth of eating, and which storage methods work best for specific varieties. Author Barbara Pleasant culls tips from decades of her own gardening experience and from growers across North America to offer planting, care, and harvesting refreshers for every region and each vegetable. Foreword INDIES Silver Award Winner GWA Media Awards Silver Award Winner

DK brings you an all-encompassing horticultural handbook to fulfil your every leaf and legume in just 3 square feet! Grow All You Can Eat in Three Square Feet is an inspiring and innovative guide to maximizing even the smallest of gardening space so you can grow delicious fruit and vegetables, in abundance, at home! This must-have manual showcases a multitude of plots and inspirational ideas to make the most of your small spaces. Grow everything from tomatoes on your window sill to wisteria up your wall, with Naomi Schillinger's easy to follow instructions. With passion in every page, you can enjoy: -Step-by-step instructions within a detailed guide on smart gardening -Featuring full colour photographs on every page -Easy to read diagrams and charts to make sure you are getting the most out of your space and your plants A recent study suggests 38% of British adults use their gardens to grow herbs and vegetables. But with the ever-growing pressure of balancing family life with a career, as well as the common myth that some gardens are simply not big enough to grow herbs and veg alike, a lot of today's green-fingered gardeners simply shy away from vegetable growing. DK is on a mission to change that! It doesn't matter how much space you have available, with key techniques such as sowing seeds, assessing soil and choosing the right plants for each environment - these top tips and tricks are all featured within this how-to-garden book. Whatever your horticultural hopes may be, Naomi Shillinger brings you a veg-growing guide that is sure to shape the next generation of green-fingered gardeners like never before, full of top tips on smart gardening, without compromising on time, space, effort or money. By applying a strategic approach to your veggie patch, from choosing the right compost to using the correct cultivation tools, Naomi assures that even the most hapless of gardeners can unearth the endless potential that all gardens possess, no matter the shape or size! Why not stand out from the crowd with this fully-illustrated veggie handbook, and start your intuitive gardening journey today to reap the benefits of a more bountiful harvest. An ideal gift for the green-fingered gardener or budding botanist in your life, Grow All You Can Eat in Three Square Feet shows that even those with the smallest space, can produce the most impressive crops.

How do you make a garden grow? In this playful companion to the popular Tap the Magic Tree and Touch the Brightest Star, you will see how tiny seeds bloom into beautiful flowers. And by tapping, clapping, waving, and more, young readers can join in the action! Christie Matheson masterfully combines the wonder of the natural world with the interactivity of reading. Beautiful collage-and-watercolor art follows the seed through its entire life cycle, as it grows into a zinnia in a garden full of buzzing bees, curious hummingbirds, and colorful butterflies. Children engage with the book as they wiggle their fingers to water the seeds, clap to make the sun shine after rain, and shoo away a hungry snail. Appropriate for even the youngest child, Plant the Tiny Seed is never the same book twice—no matter how many times you read it! And for curious young nature lovers, a page of facts about seeds, flowers, and the insects and animals featured in the book is included at the end. Fans of Press Here, Eric Carle, and Lois Ehlert will find their next favorite book in Plant the Tiny Seed.

Poses rhyming questions about what grows and what does not. Features die-cut and gatefold pages.

Huw Richards set himself a challenge - to grow his own fruit and veg for free for a year. He succeeded and now wants to help you do the same. Can't afford a raised bed? Try repurposing an old wooden pallet. Don't want to spend money on buying plants? Look in the fridge and your kitchen cupboards for food that you can plant. Need a particular tool? Barter or borrow from a neighbor. Don't have a garden? See if someone in your area has an untended patch you can turn into a well-loved veg plot. Huw's Grow Food for Free has the inspiration and practical advice you need to start, grow, love, propagate and harvest your own fruit and veg organically and at zero-cost. This is real sustainability!