From Publishers Weekly
Using the first and last frost as guideposts, father and daughter Kujawski guide would-be gardeners through the growing season and beyond, with plenty of tips and tricks to ensure a great harvest. Beginning with basics like site selection and soil preparation, the Kujawskis walk readers through the basics of seeding and planting, transplanting sensitive plants along with canny tips like using cover crops like clover or grasses as well as vinegar and clove oil to keep weeds at a minimum. Though the authors do offer suggestions on making the most of the harvest by freezing and canning, the book will be most useful during the growing season itself. Once readers have set the wheels for a small garden in motion, the book's weekly worksheets, with timely advice on which plants can be planted or harvested as well as maintenance tips for specific crops, are likely to be the most useful. Gardeners will appreciate the book's soft cover, though its pages are likely to get dirty from frequent consultations in the back yard, which is probably the intent. (Dec.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
The Kujawskis’ handbook supplies “breadth and brevity rather than depth of information” as it provides a week-by-week, yearlong gardening calendar suitable for all gardening zones and useful for all home growers, especially newcomers to the pursuit. The father-daughter authors note that getting started is “often a matter of overcoming inertia,” and begin by discussing the properties of soil and its testing, techniques for space saving, and location, location, location. Enhanced by many useful line drawings, this how-to covers the finding and using of last-frost dates for readers’ customized weekly planners, which accurately schedule indoor sowing (20-15 weeks before last frost); fertilizing; (trans)planting; pest control; harvesting; and more. Making each week’s to-do list clear and manageable are charts placed alongside easily read boxed information, such as “Garden Smart in Hot Weather” and “Weed Management 101,” that complement lined blank pages with ample room for personal notation. Instructions for “putting food by” for winter consumption, resource listings for growing tips, recipes, seeds, and suggested further readings complete this year-round gardener’s companion. --Whitney Scott