Gardening / Food Archives - Page 4 of 14

Grow More With Less

Sustainable Gardening Methods
by Vincent A. Simeone

This book looks nice, but was a disappointment for me. It has thick, glossy paper and clear photographs, but they\’re often not identified so you might not know which of the plants in the text is pictured. As the material seems aimed at beginning gardeners, this felt lacking. I do appreciate the message, to use gardening methods that are environmentally friendly and cost effective: saving water, selecting plants that require less care, encouraging wildlife etc. However there wasn\’t much new material in here for me. It wasn\’t interesting until page 90 where I was looking forward to the chapters about integrated pest management and attracting wildlife, but even that felt bland. I dutifully finished the book hoping to glean something, and noticed after a while that a lot of the text is repetitive, there are quite a few typos, and the information never gets deep enough to actually be useful. For example, the charts never tell you much more than the text itself did. One section in the book says you should survey insect pests on your plants regularly and lists things to gather for the task, but then doesn\’t tell you how to use the items. Also, the chapter intros have a printed background of burlap texture, which makes the text annoyingly hard to read (might have worked if the font was bold for those pages). It also tends to veer slightly off-topic sometimes, into other ways you can make your home and landscape more \’green\’. Not just about gardening, and I didn\’t learn a bunch of new ways to recycle and save in the garden like I\’d hoped. So I can\’t recommend it, except to absolute beginners who want a nice general introduction into organic, sustainable gardening.

Rating: 2/5 192 pages, 2013

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Paradise Under Glass

An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden
by Ruth Kassinger

I don\’t know if it\’s just my mental state, but I found this book a disappointment. It seemed right up my alley- a woman who could barely keep a single houseplant alive, suddenly feels inspired to build what I\’d call a large sunroom onto her house to replace an old deck. She stocks it with fruit trees and vibrant tropical foliage plants, learning by mistakes and with the guidance of a helpful local nursery employee. Becoming enthused with all the green growing things, she travels to visit commercial greenhouses and public arboretums, admiring a living green wall, learning about the history of clivias and Victorian fern hunters, seeing what it takes for an operation to produce thousands of houseplants for sale. She tells a lot about the history of greenhouses- starting with how citrus trees were first imported from China to other countries and kept alive through the winters- and early plant collectors and the architecture of glass buildings and so much of that overwhelmed the main story and made my eyes swim. I really was not interested in all the historical people and their doings. I\’d have rather just read the personal bits- the part about butterflies was really wonderful, also the chapter on how she battled infestations in her sunroom and learned about beneficial bugs. The section about her sister\’s poor health very sad but also felt a little out of place. In all it was a rather uneven read for me- I really liked reading about her own plants and how she learned to care for them, but the historical sections failed to hold my interest.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5 347 pages, 2010

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Herb Gardening at Its Best

Everything You Need to Know About Growing Your Favorite Herbs
by Sal Gilbertie and Larry Sheehan

Simply a practical how-to on growing herbs. Written by someone who grew them commercially for over forty years. The cultivation methods are slightly different from what I\’ve been doing, and maybe I will try some in my own garden. I knew enough to water the herb bed less frequently than the other plants, but didn\’t realize they also require less fertilizer. Because the oils that give herbs scent and flavor are less concentrated if they have lush, excessive growth. So I might quit feeding that bed compost and just give it leaf mold. Except this book also says that herb gardens shouldn\’t be mulched during the growing season, as it keeps them too damp. It\’s pretty hot here in summers so I\’m not sure about that in my case. Anyhow, aside from information on germination, cultivation and harvest times for herbs, the book also has a section of layouts for different types of herb gardens, each with a specific focus. Herbs for making tea, for soups, for adding to bread or making potpourri. Herb gardens for medicinal use, to attract bees or selections to repel pests. There\’s a list of plants to include in a collection of just basil, thyme or sage (so many varieties!) and I\’m most intrigued by the scented geraniums. Aside from some general suggestions for culinary uses, this book doesn\’t tell much about the different plants\’ characteristics, but the names of ones I\’m unfamiliar with intrigue me to look up more: sweet woodruff, bergamot, costmary, tansy, comfry, dittany, santolina etc. So many I don\’t know. Although many have suggested uses I wouldn\’t need- for dying cloth, for cure-alls or love potions haha! I do find it interesting the wide variety of herbs out there and their properties. Also, the cover of this book is hideous. There\’s another with very similar title by the same author, Herb Gardening From the Ground Up, which looks like it might be an updated version of this edition, I\’m not sure.

Rating: 3/5 245 pages, 1978

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Leaving the Wild

the Unnatural History of Dogs, Cats, Cows, and Horses
by Gavin Ehringer

I don’t like the cover at all. And I found the material interesting enough, but a bit uneven. The sections on dogs and cats are more than half the book, the part about cows a little shorter than the first two, and horses felt tacked on at the end with far less coverage. Honestly I almost put this one aside, because the first chapter on how dogs became domesticated, was boring. I’d either read most of it before elsewhere, or felt my eyes glazing over on the history details. There’s a lengthy chapter on how the Victorian craze for purebred dogs changed the course of dog breeding forever, and another on how rightfully pit bulls are vilified. Curiously, this book states that overpopulation is no longer a huge problem for dogs and cats in America, that in fact a lot of shelters now have to import homeless animals to keep their operations running. Another section looks into the ethtics of dog shows and breeders- stating that most people who breed dogs knows what they’re doing and look seriously into the genetics to ensure healthy animals, but the public knowledge about what goes on is woefully behind the reality. Hm. The part about cats has a lot of Egyptian history, and about how the popularity of cats waxed and waned over the centuries- I learned quite a bit of folklore and such I hadn’t known before. There’s a strong emphasis in here on the problem of stray and feral cats- firstly it states that cats are not wiping out birds (except on certain isolated islands where they are truly invasive) that statistics blaming domestic cats for falling bird numbers across America are exaggerated or wrongly extrapolated, there being so many other factors. And examples are given how trap-neuter-release programs can be extremely effective. When it comes to cows, I found myself reading about genetic cloning, dairy farm management, criticism of feedlot operations, and the plight of unwanted steer calves among other things. And organic milk production. And the debate on hormone injections. And so on. The horse chapters were very few. There is a bit of breed history, mostly about Mongolian horses under Ghenghis Khan, the beauty of Arabians, the inbreeding of famed quarter horses, and where it is all going. I skimmed much of the last chapter, just like I did the first.

So I learned a few new things, and I found a lot of it interesting, but much more was repetitive or simply felt off-topic. If I’d wanted to read about GMO tomatoes I would have picked a different book. Maybe the title gave me the wrong expectation, but I was alternately disappointed, bored and then intrigued again (when learning something new, or reading stuff that refuted things I thought I already knew).

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5 356 pages, 2017

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Green Thoughts

A Writer in the Garden
by Eleanor Perényi

Just the sort of garden writing I love. A collection of short essays (organized alphabetically by subject) on everything it seems: plant choices, catalogue perusing, balancing acts against pests, shunning harsh chemicals (she was an organic gardener), designing outdoor space, composting, pruning techniques, controlling weeds and disease. Also on individual plants: strawberries, tomatoes, peonies, daylilies, beans, onions, sweet peas, tulips, potatoes etc etc. The parts that waxed historical were not as interesting to me- although I did pay attention to the section about the tulip craze, and another about the development of rose varieties. The part on historical aspects of garden design, not so much. Her voice is down-to-earth, amusing, frank and informative. I even laughed out loud a few times! This book goes on the shelf right next to Thalassa Cruso and Katherine White (whom she quotes- we are among good company). I took notes (on plant species to look for, mostly) and bookmarked pages. I don\’t agree with all her opinions, but everyone\’s methods are slightly different. She avoids the work of carting seedlings in an out of the house, for example (like me, not having a greenhouse) but commiserates on how this style of \”labor-intensive\” gardening is becoming an anomaly- surrounded by neighbors who use gas-powered, noisy machines that do a crude job instead of the care and finesse could have done by hand. And this book is from the early eighties! I would be glad to tell her (she passed in 2009) that not all old-school gardeners are gone by the wayside, in fact there\’s a rising cadre of us now.

Rating: 4/5 289 pages, 1981

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Personalities on the Plate

the Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat
by Barbara J. King

This book looks at the lives of animals we humans tend to eat: fish, chickens, goats, cows and pigs. It also starts off with a chapter on insects- is it better to eat insects than mammals, because they need fewer resources (lighter burden on the planet), and have less apparent intelligence? maybe- but most people in the western world can\’t get over their repugnance. On the flip side, I can\’t think of anyone who would eat chimpanzee meat, for entirely different reasons- but the author tells us there definitely are people who do, in other parts of the world. There\’s also a chapter on octopus, how smart they are, how much a delicacy in certain cultures- but having not-too-long ago read Sy Montgomery\’s the Soul of an Octopus– which is quoted plenty in here- I found myself skipping through a lot of it. In fact that was a damper for me in most of the book- I\’ve also read several Michael Pollan books, Jonathan Safran Foer\’s Eating Animals and Barry Estabrook\’s Pig Tales, plus several others which are quoted or heavily referenced here. So although the author brought in a lot of personal experiences and incidents I hadn\’t heard of, still much of the material felt repetitive to me, not a lot new, and I skimmed plenty. I also gather that much of it was first written as a blog, which might have something to do with how brief and light some of the writing feels to me. It\’s also strong on the emotional slant, in giving reasons for moving away from eating meat and being vegetarian or vegan. However there was enough of interest in here – and some very convincing rationales I hadn\’t though of before- that I read it all the way through, regardless of the skips. So please don\’t take my rating to heart this time; it\’s more my personal response to the book because I already felt fairly saturated with this kind of information, than anything else. I think I need to switch subject matters for a while.

I was really horrified by the story of Mike the headless chicken by the way- just google that, if you will. Even worse is the fact that after this chicken gained fame (and money) for his owner, lots of other men tried to duplicate the curiosity- killing tons of chickens just to try and get one that would freakishly survive it. What??!

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 2/5 229 pages, 2017

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Closer to the Ground

An Outdoor Family\’s Year on the Water, in the Woods and at the Table
by Dylan Tomine

This book was very enjoyable. It\’s about a family that does a lot of what I wish I did more of- forage, grow, harvest and catch their own food. Well, they benefit by living right by the ocean- literally five minutes from a boat ramp. They go crabbing, fishing, deer hunting, gather mussels, dig clams, hunt chanterelles and pick berries in the forest, and grow a vegetable garden. The father is passionate about finding and cutting deadfall trees to heat their house all year round. Not all trees are equal in this- I didn\’t realize by how much. Not all goes as planned- but Tomine writes with wry humor his own mishaps, and describes in glowing tones his small triumphs, and wow the food sounds delectable all round (this book makes me hungry.) His kids get muddy, wet, cold and tired- and are happily involved, delighted in their part. They are always eager to try one more fishing spot, drop one more crab pot. They point out the lovely things alone the way- porpoises and seals in the Sound, birds on the water, when dad often just wants to find the thing they came to catch and get it home again- kids make you slow down and appreciate the doing of it. He talks about the tricky balance between trying to live \”green\” and being practical about it- especially when it comes to what kind of car they drive, and where they source materials for an addition to their house. It\’s honest about how much one can do- when their tomato crop fails due to blight, they recognize it\’s okay- they don\’t solely live off their garden produce, and they have a ton of stuff growing wonderfully even when the tomatoes didn\’t make it. It\’s about doing what you can to be good to the Earth, living close to nature and making the most of the available bounty. It also makes me nostalgic, being written by a man who lives on an island in Puget Sound- right around where I grew up. I heartily recommend this book to my siblings and parents- I\’m sure they would really appreciate it.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5 230 pages, 2012

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Current Reads, Gardening / Food, Nature

Eating Animals

by Jonathan Safran Foer

This book has made my heart heavy. It put a lot on my mind and now I hardly know where to start talking about it. It starts as a personal narrative- the author had waffled for most of his life about eating meat or not- and finally decided to do some research on it: why do we eat animals? where does it come from? how are the animals treated? He also tells quite a few family stories, illustrating how important food is in culture and family heritage, emphasizing how difficult it is to change, and to reason out why. A lot of it is about how screwed up the food system is in our country, particularly factory farming of animals. The author took a very close look at all this. He interviewed many: a man who runs a large operation, a small scale farmer who personally knows all his animals, an activist who sneaks into chicken sheds. It’s not just about how appallingly the livestock is treated in the poultry, cattle and hog farming industries, it’s about how terribly they pollute the environment, how dangerous they are for our health, how wretched the working conditions are for humans employed there. How the power of the corporations enables them to shrug off fines or ignore audits and inspections that don’t get enforced. I was shocked to read that over ninety percent of the meat now sold in America comes from large factory farms. Humanely raised animals are so few- not from lack of demand, but because the system makes it so hard for small farmers to function- they would never feed us- not even one city. Apparently even fish isn’t a good choice- if you’re not worried about mercury poisoning, or alarmed at how devastatingly commercial fishing ravages the ocean (killing hundreds of species for each one they actually keep), farm-raised fish isn’t all that better: the conditions on fish farms are just as bad for the animals as those in land-based facilities, and are even less regulated. Foer makes it sound like the only way to avoid being part of all this nastiness and horror is to simply not eat meat. For the first time it sounds like a proper idea to me.

This book was written a decade ago- I’d like to think that things have improved, but I’m rather pessimistic about that. However, there are at least two restaurants near me that specialize in farm-to-table fare, we are definitely going to patronize them although it’s expensive (for good reason) I will just eat out less. As if I did much before, anyway.

Rating: 4/5

341 pages, 2009

More opinions:
words by Annie
Stuff as Dreams Are Made On

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Gardening / Food, Nonfiction (general)

Bringing Nature Home

How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants

by Douglas W. Tallamy

This one was great. Just what I needed. Stuffed full of information and beautifully clear photographs. It’s not necessarily about how to select plants, but instead focused on why homeowners need to reintroduce native plants to their land, and weed out aliens as much as possible. I’ve never been a purist in my gardening. I’ve always though ok: natives are good, feed the birds, but I like some striking, pretty plants that don’t get eaten by the deer too. Although I haven’t got very far in filling my yard with the perennials and shrubs I had my eye on yet, and a good thing I guess. This book has convinced me I’d do better with buttonbush than butterfly bush, and to really value the maples, oaks and crabapple in my yard- in spite of the mess they make with dropped seeds and small hard fruit.

His main point is that in order to support the wildlife we like seeing- the mammals- squirrels, rabbits, deer, foxes – and particularly the birds- we need to have plants that support the bugs. Because all the small creepy crawly things eat the plants and turn the value of the sun’s energy trapped in plants into a major food source (their own bodies) for the birds. Most birds feed their young on insects, period. And he points out that the damage insects do to plants is usually minor enough that most gardeners don’t notice it, if you have a good balance so there are enough predators attracted (birds, spiders, assassin bugs etc) to eat them! And he shows the scientific data that no matter how long an alien species of plant has been on our continent, the insect life here is not adapted to feed off it, and will take such a long time to do so it\’s pointless to consider. I didn’t realize.

So a major part of the book is a gallery of photos showing all the little critters you might not notice in the yard, making a note of why they are important to the bird life (and other things), and what plants support them. There’s also a section on trees, which native trees are the most valuable in terms of supporting wildlife- some feed literally hundreds of different species. I really like reading through the pages on insects. I learned some astonishing things, and found info on bugs I’ve seen in my own yard, but knew nothing about before. Did you know there are female insects that care for their young? some will guard the eggs from predators, others guard the nymphs, and one will lay its eggs near another female’s clutch, then leave so the first female cares for them all! Did you know the female white tussock moth has no wings? I’ve seen their caterpillars a few times, had no idea. Did you know that monarch caterpillars can feed on more than just milkweed? any plant in the same family will do- and there’s quite a few of them. So, so much more.

I paid to read this one, that’s how much it galvanized me. I kept it beyond the due date (when someone else obviously wanted it- I couldn’t renew) so I could finish reading, take notes, and find a copy machine for those lists of plants in my region that have the highest wildlife value (supporting the greatest number of insect and thus bird life). I really want to find a copy to add to my personal collection, so I can reference it often. I’m not going to stop trying to keep the bugs from ruining my vegetable garden, but if I plant more perennials and flowers around the yard they can eat, maybe they won’t be so attracted to my little patch of edibles. And this book shows me how.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 5/5

358 pages, 2007

More opinions at: Commonweeder
anyone else?

Tags: 5/5- Loved It, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads, Gardening / Food, Nature

Common Sense Organic Gardening

by Warner and Lucile Bowers

In spite of being old, this book was pretty interesting and gave me some new ideas. It was written by an older couple who were very avid gardeners- their neighbors thought them crazy about it ha- and their enthusiasm really comes through the pages. They write mostly about labor-saving methods and how they grew produce organically for health benefits. Their main emphasis was using tons of thick mulch- made from shredded leaves- we\’re talking over a thousand bushels a year that they processed- and salt hay. After the first year they never had to till and barely weeded their garden. Interesting to me, they didn\’t grow a ton of vegetables but focused on exotics and curiosities that weren\’t available in grocery stores, and put most of their home made compost not on the kitchen garden but on their beloved fruit trees and roses. I was impressed at the output of those peaches and more. Some of the information is outdated -to be expected- but I was pretty surprised to read that while they definitely eschewed using poisons to control insect pests (except for one or twice-yearly spraying of the fruit trees), had no qualms about shoveling up sand from roadsides after winter, to use in their soil mix! (They did leach out the salts with water and use soap to remove most of the motor oil residue, but still. I would not.) And they scoffed at being told not to use landscaping plastic because it doesn\’t biodegrade, pointing out the many tatters and tears in plastics they had tried using- I assume nobody knew about microplastics at the time. I admired their thriftiness and zeal for building things- but dismayed that their favorite seedling container was styrofoam coffee cups!

Anyway, it was nice to read about all their methods, favorite tools, preferred ways to tend to plants- comparing to what I do and taking away a few new concepts. They built and used cold frames, made trellises out of discarded items like hat racks and metal screen door decorations, built birdhouses and feeders, grew many varieties of berries and grapes, made liqueurs and wine, etc. Their outright enthusiasm for propagating plants from cuttings or sprouting things out of seeds from what they ate- just to see if it would grow- delighted me- I\’m of the same mind. I never thought of taking cuttings from chrysanthemums, I haven\’t yet tried air-layering to save my dracanea which is about to hit the ceiling, and I\’d love to have a huge shaded fern collection or figs in pots like they did. Much to admire.

Oh, and there\’s recipes! Not my usual style of cooking, but I\’d like to try a few.

Rating: 3/5 224 pages, 1974

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Gardening / Food

Tag: Gardening / Food

How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants

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