Want a Great Garden? Start With Good Compost!
Composting is a great way to reduce kitchen waste while also adding valuable compounds and nutrients to your garden soil.
So get this year’s garden off to a great start with these books – and don’t miss our March 20 Gardening and Composting program at the Westover Branch Library.
Complete Compost Gardening Guide
by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah Martin
Details multiple types of composting techniques that range from allowing certain insects that eat plant-enemies to multiply in your garden to picking the style of composter for your needs to which vegetables or fruits grow best in certain compost. The use of the word “complete” in the title does speak to this book’s value as a wide-spectrum resource.
Complete Gardener’s Guide
by DK (various authors)
A beautiful DK published work designed to be a reference book covering basic as well as advanced techniques for gardening design and maintenance. And since this book is a full reference work, it also brings together information regarding other landscape design ideas that may touch the garden.
Compost Critters
by Bianca Lavies
A book for kids on what types of creatures use and live in compost – a facet of gardening as a family-friendly activity. The book details how so many “critters” improve the value of compost by helping decomposition.
Radical Prunings: A Novel of Officious Advice from the Contessa of Compost
by Bonnie Thomas Abbott
The collected (fictional) horticultural columns of one opinionated Mertensia Corydalis. As Mertensia answers her readers’ innocent gardening questions, she reveals more than she intends about her life, her relationships, and her state of mind.
Container Gardening
by Vicki Webster and Sunset Books
Details the main elements in container gardening such as choosing aesthetic factors, selecting the best setting for the containers and the plants involved and dealing with the weather.
A Garden for all Seasons
by Reader’s Digest
Lists the best plants for varied spaces and climates and features beautiful photography to boot. The book is structured according to 5 segments: All Seasons and then one for each of the four.
Gardening with Children
by Beth Richardson
Many families who have or plan gardens want the children in the household to join in the activity. This book details the educational and bonding scenarios that can arise when a family gardens together.
The Green Gardener’s Guide
by Joe Lamp’l
This book suggests ways useful to urban and suburban gardeners can rethink habits of waste while maximizing the yield of their eco-friendly gardening efforts. He discusses topics ranging from biodegradable plant containers and insect control to passive solar energy.
Paths of Desire: The Passions of a Suburban Gardener
by Dominique Browning
The narrative of Dominique’s rebuilding of a suburban garden from neglect to a thing of neighborhood beauty. The text describes her attitudes and plans for the plot of land and relates the act of gardening to relationships in her life.
Pot it Grow it Eat it: Home Grown Produce from Pot to Pan
by Kathryn Hawkins
Describes the author’s experiences in an urban communal garden and the methods she found to keep her plants safe year-round. Much of the book deals with best-practices for container gardening.