Organic Gardening for Everyone: Homegrown Vegetables Made Easy – No Experience Required!
If you want to grow healthy vegetables at home, but have hesitated because it seems too hard and time consuming, Organic Gardening for Everyone is your perfect hands-on guide—an “if I can do it, you can do it” case study that addresses your concerns and gets you started.
Loaded with practical advice and step-by-step guidance, Organic Gardening for Everyone takes a very personal and friendly approach to a subject that can be intimidating. It is a first-class primer on organic vegetable gardening, and an inspirational story about how anyone can balance the rigors of gardening with the demands of a modern, family-oriented lifestyle.
In 2012, a California mom decided to start an organic vegetable garden. But she went about it in an unusual way: she crowdsourced it by launching a YouTube channel under the name “CaliKim” and asking for help. And then she started planting. As questions came up, she turned to her viewers and subscribers and they replied with answers and advice. As she learned, her garden grew successfully—even in the hot, harsh California climate. Her expertise also grew, and now she answers many more questions than she asks and has become a very accomplished home gardener.
And CaliKim has a great story to tell: growing healthy organic vegetables for your family is not difficult, even for today’s time-challenged lifestyles. She provides complete step-by-step information on growing the most popular edibles organically, and also gives sound advice on how to take on the challenges of balancing a hectic lifestyle with successful growing—and how to involve the whole family in the process.
You’ll be rewarded for your effort every time you place a plate of natural, organic vegetables on the family dinner table knowing exactly what they are, what is in them, and where they came from.
Thanks for this great book Kim!
It's very good for beginners. It's written clearly, and explains a lot of things that people don't know about gardening well and simply so it's not intimidating. It's a book I'll happily recommend.
I am learning so much from this one.
We have tried our hand at gardening on and off over the years.
Never totally organic but tried a little without the best of luck.
Now though with more information and such great helpful tips with this one I feel better prepared once the season gets here in my area.
I have been working on a few of the methods in here for indoor starter plants.
Pleasantly surprised with how well it is going so far.
Overall this is a great book for a total beginner like myself.
There's a lot of good reference material for someone starting out and there are even helpful sections for the more experienced, like me.
The one little thing I did not like about this book is that I feel the author did not do enough to warn the reader about the true perils that come from organic gardening when it comes to pests and disease. The topic is briefly covered but this can be such a major defeat for the organic gardener. I have had whole gardens wiped out faster than I could stop the invasions because I only use OMRI approved methods, so I can't just wipe out the invaders like those with conventional gardens can.
That being said, the book is GREAT and I feel it is a great starting point to get aspiring organic gardeners on the right path. I hope more and more people can go down this path as there is nothing like it. Gardening for me gives a small burst of joy that reminds me of a mini version of what I experienced with the birth of my children. It can be an amazing experience that will change your life.
Just be ready for the pests and disease waiting out there. =)
Hope this helps!
The book is filled with excellent advice for beginners, and has great pictures all through it. The author is budget conscious as she describes ways to garden organically with very affordable means.
She really focuses in on tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and other vegetables that most people eat very often. The basic veggies, I would say. I also really like that she includes a warm weather veggie chart and a cool weather one. I laughed a bit when I saw it, remembering how when I started, I would always try to plant my lettuce and broccoli too late in the season, and I'd wonder why I could never grow it.
I wish I'd had a book like this when I started growing. It really focuses on doing the basics, and doing them well.
As I went back and read through the entire book, I saw that she uses this technique throughout. I'm not one to read through a gardening text cover to cover. I'm an untrained novice, and I find I quickly lose interest. CaliKim sustained my interest in chapter after chapter, by laying out her information in a quickly accessible format, those Pros and Cons, and by using just enough personal accounts, both hers and short tales plucked from the quandaries of others.
It's a difficult balance in writing about gardening, between inspiring the reader with the the joys of digging in the dirt and boring the reader with the joys of digging in the dirt. By providing factual information, information about simple new techniques and gadgetry easy to put to use (great chapter on grow lights) balanced with just enough personal information, CaliKim really has created an Organic Gardening for Everyone.
Either inside growing or outside !!
She’s goes step by step in this book and also on her YouTube videos ! I highly recommend Kim’s book to all gardeners , if your a beginner or experience gardener, you will learn something new,
Kim gave me the confidence to start my garden and expand it fully , I started small last year and now I have made my back yard the most popular horn on the block and the inside of my home a jungle! I wouldn’t change it for the world because I’ll learned how to also cann all my garden magic die the winter and I get itchy if I am not growing anything,
Take the experience read the book, thank Kim later!
Do this for years but didn’t have the proper guidance so this is FANTASTIC. If you found my review helpful, please let me know by clicking below! ⤵️
Questions we all have are answered within the pages of the book. When can you plant tomatoes? Where should you plant your tomatoes? How do you fertilize them and many more. A complete guide to becoming an organic gardener right in your own backyard.
I loved this book. I have gardened my whole life, and found so many tips and tricks to help me be a better gardener. I enjoyed the step by step photos especially on drip irrigation which I have never attempted. After reading the book, I’m ready to give it a try. This book really builds your confidence. Thank you so much to CaliKim, Cool Springs Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book to read and review.
We have been organic gardening for a decade and I still learned new things. My kids are reading through it now.
Someone should ship Monsanto a copy. They sure could learn a lot.
Highly recommended
It's understandable.
Whether it's addressing soil, pests, watering or choice of plants, from her sunny SoCal perch, CaliKim offers an accessible, neighborly manner which she carries into this abundantly illustrated (photography) introduction to organic gardening.
This reviewer considers himself an advanced beginner. For someone in this state of ignorance, the most useful sections were:
* Practical drip irrigation
* Pest-discouraging plant choice
* Powdery mildew treatment
* (Throughout) Kind words, written in first person, for inevitable moments of discouragement
PRO
* Thoughtfully covers more than enough to get you started
* Covers seed selection through harvest life cycle
* Covers pests and pest control for common vegetables
* Well indexed
* DIY above-ground planters
CON
* If you're only going to buy one book as a reference -- not an introduction to the topic -- this may not be your best choice. It's not designed to present vegetable DNA or history.
* Have not thoroughly researched this, but the use of grow lights can be very energy intensive. It might be better to leave this to large scale seedling operations rather than home gardens.
* Maybe my academic training, but the absence of a strong bibliography is an odd editorial choice -- particularly noticeable since the index is quite good
* The photos make the book seem readable and attractive, but often the photos don't contribute as much as the same space dedicated to more CaliKim text would have
* Not much discussion of Ph and soil amendment concerns
* Not sure the perfect binding will hold up to regular use
CONCLUSION
These CONs are mild. If you're anything less than "experienced" or "advanced" in your gardening, you'll find something of interest that will repay you in both acquisition cost (avoiding grocery purchases) and pleasurable harvesting.
RECOMMENDED
We don't need to explain why organic and vegetable-based is better for health and the planet, do we?