Want to grow vegetables year-round? Think it is impossible in your climate? This book banishes the misconception that you can’t grow food in winter.
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The YEAR-ROUND VEGETABLE GARDENER: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live
by Niki Jabbour
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (Dec 14 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1603425683
- ISBN-13: 978-1603425681
This book busts the myth that you cannot grow vegetables in winter other than in mild climates. Niki shares her experience of growing vegetables year-round in Nova Scotia, on the east coast of Canada, where the winters are often cold and stormy.
She explains what the three growing seasons are (yes, three not just the one,, summer, that many people think of when talking about growing vegetables), how to start seeds early, extend the harvest with various season extenders such as poly tunnels and even harvest vegetables in the depths of winter with snow on the ground and freezing temperatures.
She also has included lots of additional info (some in the form of sidebars) on intensive planting, successful summer planting, cover crops, pests and diseases, seeding, succession planting, amendments, herbs, instructions for building a cold frame, and charts for succession planting and inter-planting.
The back half of the book “Growing the Right Crops” covers vegetables from A to Z (well, just up to W), including in many cases multiple planting times based on your last and first frost dates so that you can maximize your harvest. Niki recommends her favourite varieties for each vegetable in a sidebar titled “Niki’s Picks”.
Originally I had borrowed this book from our public library and reluctantly returned it just before it was due. As I found the info so useful I decided to purchase a copy for myself which I have not regretted. It doesn’t sit on the bookshelf in our spare room with the other gardening books – instead, it has a prominent spot on a side table in our living room so that it is always at hand for a quick reference.
It is a book I highly recommend to anyone that wants to extend the growing season and be able to harvest fresh vegetables even in the depths of winter.
