Review: The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden

Book Details:
Title: The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden
Author: Karen Newcomb
ISBN: 978-1607746836

Book Summary:
  To accommodate today's lifestyles, a garden needs to fit easily into a very small plot, take as little time as possible to maintain, require a minimum amount of water, and still produce prolifically. That's exactly what a postage stamp garden does. Postage stamp gardens are as little as 4 by 4 feet, and, after the initial soil preparation, they require very little extra work to produce a tremendous amount of vegetables--for instance, a 5-by-5-foot bed will produce a minimum of 200 pounds of vegetables. 

When first published 40 years ago, the postage stamp techniques, including closely planted beds rather than rows, vines and trailing plants grown vertically to free up space, and intercropping, were groundbreaking. Now, in an ever busier world, the postage stamp intensive gardening method continues to be invaluable for gardeners who wish to weed, water, and work a whole lot less yet produce so much more.

My Review:
This is a very handy gardening book. No color photos included, but there is a lot packed into this book. Planing seasons, different examples of plot sizes and shapes, and explanations on different kinds of plants are all in there. There is also instructions on how to prepare your soil and keep it nutritious for your plant.s I enjoyed a few of the small sections included on things like moon phases and how they might affect your crops.
There seems to be very detailed sections of rotating crops and how to get your postage stamp garden to thrive. This method reminds me a lot of the Square-Foot Garden method where you are doing more intensive gardening rather than having your crops all spread out in rows. This is nice for obvious reasons and perfect for someone with a small space to still have a great vegetable garden. The author seems very knowledgeable and the writing is easy to read and understand. I will definitely be using this as a reference for years to come.

More Info
Author Bio

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books for an honest review. No other compensation was received and all thoughts and opinions are strictly my own.

Fun in the Sun

Today we were forced to stay at home ALL day. Not that this is a bad thing... sometimes I wish we did it more. Unfortunately, it seems like we have somewhere to go almost everyday around here. Is it bad that a part of me longs for the days without Women's Bible Study, MOPS, soccer and whatever other weekly activities we do during the school year? Anyway... my car was being worked on today (really more like being assessed, which seems to come with a future hefty price tag) and so we had to stay home.

Being that we had a day at home AND it was an amazingly gorgeous day here in the Pacific NW (over 80 degrees!), I cleaned my carpets and then forced Malachi to play outside. He's been begging me to play in the sprinkler for days now....

Isn't this the face of pure delight? I love the innocence.

And then there's my Zach. He napped for much of the outdoor play, but managed to get out and crawl around in the wet grass for awhile. Grass is not his favorite texture and I am slowly trying to get him used to it. I'm surprised he tolerated the wet grass at all! 

See those scarred up knees? Those are the knees of a master speed crawler. Of a boy who refuses to walk on his own. Those knees are not dirty... they always look like that; a constant rug burn. Can't feel sorry for the kid though... he could walk he if wanted!

And what was I doing during all this fun?

I was tackling this mess. This is NOT part of the yard - this is the garden area right up against the house. Looks terrible doesn't it? This is what happens when you rent and don't feel like righting the wrongs of those who have come before you because you might move. Well... I think I'm staying here for awhile and I've decided I'm just going to have to make the best of it... and that means dealing with this disaster. So... one blister and a sore shoulder later it's slightly cleared out. Hopefully there will be an "after" photo to share eventually!

Happy Sunny Days!!!

Mother's Day and Container Gardening

My mom watched my boys for me this past Saturday while I was at work. She attempted a brave Mother's Day project for me with them. Something she saw on Pinterest - and I love it!

My mom and Malachi painted this terracotta pot blue and then came the brave part - painting their feet and pressing them onto the pot to make the butterflies. Zach apparently hated it and Malachi has such a high arch that she kind of had to fill in the gap, but I thought it turned out wonderful. Now I just need to take a sharpie and write the year on the bottom. =)

Next comes my little container garden. For my birthday gift, I said I wanted to take a trip to the local Farmer's Market and pick out some plants. I don't have super high expectations this year, but I thought I'd attempt a few veggies in pots this year. I'm pretty pleased with how it's looking so far.....

Left to Right: Carrots, Tomato, Cucumber, Zucchini, Green Onions & Salad Mix

Also, not shown are two more tomato plants hanging in TopseyTurvy planters and a bowl of spinach. Hopefully this will at least keep us in salad fixin's through the summer!

Spring Garden Planning

Although I would love to have a large sprawling vegetable garden, that's not really possible where we live. We rent our house and although we could tear up the yard for a garden, I'm not really willing to do that and then I have to re-sod it if we move.

My solution has been Square Foot Gardening (SFG). The last couple years have not been very successful - Spring 2009 I gave birth and Spring 2010 I had a barely one-year-old and I just couldn't get motivated. THIS year, I've decided to do some serious planning so that I have no excuse. The Little Guy can come out in the yard with me.

My husband is going to fence in a small portion of the backyard so that our dogs can't go running through my beds (will also prevent them pooping around my garden). This way I can also have my Little Guy out there with me without having to worry about him falling in the lake behind out house.

Right now I'm looking through my SFG book and trying to figure out which crops I might try this year and whether I'm going to do seeds or seedlings and then how and where I'm going to plant them.

Maybe if I have a good plan I'll follow through with it... =)



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Growing Tea

I am a tea lover. I love coffee too, but there is just something about a cup of tea that is wonderful. My favorites are English Breakfast and Peppermint. There are of course, so many varieties that I think it's probably impossible to try them all. We have a shop in our downtown called The Tea Lady and she sells hundreds (maybe thousands?) of varieties of teas.

Anyway.... the other day when I swiped my mom's Territorial Seeds catalog, I came across a page which said they sold a plant for growing your own tea. What!? My interest was piqued. I acutally think I'm kind of driving my family kind of nuts (at least my husband) because I keep talking about growing my own tea!

Tonight I've been googling growing your own tea plant and here's what I've discovered so far (non-herbal teas):

• Green tea, Black tea, Oolong tea and White tea all come from the same plant (ha!)
• The different types of tea come from how you process it after removing it from the plant
• You can grow it outdoors in Zones 8 and above (but I've found one variety that says you can grow it in the Pacific NW)
• If you grow the plant from seed, it takes up to three years before you can harvest the leaves for tea.
• The plant variety is called the Camellia sinensis

Interesting, right?

So I'm thinking I may have to get one - a plant I mean. I don't think I want to wait three years! But I think I can wait one or two (maybe), so I'm considering purchasing that Camellia sinensis plant from Raintree Nursery.

Want to find out some more about it? Here are some of the places I found helpful:
One Green Generation
Growing Tea at Home
The Tea Guy - interesting video of how he harvests the tea leaves
Groovy Green

If I actually DO this, I'll be sure to blog about it. Does anyone else out there grow their own tea?? I'd love to hear about it!





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Spring Gardens?

Okay, maybe it's just a tiny bit early to start thinking about my spring garden, but ya know... I'm already looking forward to it. Once upon a time, I had a lovely garden (okay... it was really only one year, but it could have continued!)


Anyway... the summer before the Little Guy was born, I planted a nice garden based on the Square Foot Gardening method. I was really proud of it (we were living in a little duplex at the time without much yard).


It did really well and we had yummy fresh salad greens and tomato's all summer. But then I had a baby... need I say more?


He was born at the end of March and I had a C-section, so scratch getting my garden in on time that year. I attempted to put in a few things, but I just didn't get out there to tend to it much. Last year, I tried to do some containers, but it was still kind of hard (my Square Foot Garden box had fallen apart by this time). 


Sooooo, this year I am determined that the Little Guy is old enough to entertain himself. He loves to be outside, so I have no excuse for not getting something in the ground! I stole my mom's Territorial Seeds catalog today when we were over there and it was really getting me excited about planting.


I also came across this book, The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery, in the catalog and I'm thinking I might have to save up my Swagbucks rewards and purchase it. It's about $18.00 on Amazon.


I feel like the more and more we can do to eat fresher and be more self-sufficient, the better off we'll be. So, hopefully as this Spring goes on, I'll have some garden news to report. =)




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