Grow Great Grub book giveaway
Gayla Trail, author of the most beginner-friendly garden book I own, You Grow Girl, has a new one under her garden belt and I’m so excited to be able to offer up a copy to you.
;)
Grow Great Grub is a friendly, practical primer on container and small-space organic gardening. Gayla takes you through the step-by-step process of growing food that’s good for you and good for the planet without costing you an arm and a leg. I love her creative, improvisational alternatives to going out and buying a bunch of stuff, some of which I’ve employed with success, like her toilet tube seed-starting method and managing to eat from our back-deck, bucket garden last year.
Here are some of the things I particularly love about this book:
- Her focus on windowsill growing, for those of us without even a stoop or balcony to our rental agreement
- She lays out which plastics to avoid when selecting/crafting DIY container garden bins (leaching issues)
- The side-boxes that accompany all the plant varieties and give you specific details on how to grow each plant in a pot successfully
- The whole fruit chapter!
- Her suggestion of the insanely cute idea to freeze edible herb flowers inside ice cubes for a pretty and refreshing lift in your iced tea or water.
- Great suggestions on short and long-term storage of the things you grow (that is, if bounty is a ‘problem’ for you!)
- She has a great community forum for Q & A or specific issues you encounter that are not in the book.
So, let’s get down to business. Clarkson Potter has been so kind as to ship a copy of this book to the winner, but they can only ship to the US and Canada. To enter, post a comment below telling us: What you’re excited to grow this year and what kind of gardening you do (or plan to start doing), i.e. you’ve got actual ground, containers on the roof, windowsills, a guerilla garden, etc.
Comments close on Tuesday, March 8 at midnight CST. I will select a winner via random.org. Please don’t forget to include your email address in the little box that asks for it on the comment form so I can contact you if you win; don’t worry, other readers won’t see it.
Kate
Congratulations to Kelly! Thanks all for entering. Wishing you happy endeavors in the growing season, no matter what your situation may be.
Garden & Outdoors, Gardening, Giveaways
Reader Comments (150)
I just posted about my new plans for our gardens this year on my blog :) I am excited to try the Heirloom Moon & Stars Watermelon this year and the Cherokee Purple Tomato :)
We also plan to install cold frames this season to grow through fall and winter.
I'm excited to grow just about everything we're planning -- maybe most excited about chard and kale. My partner and I are in a house with a yard for the first time, so we're planning a couple of raised beds.
I follow @yougrowgirl on twitter and I would absolutely love a copy of her book!
I moved into an urban apartment this year and don't have a yard or patio, so I am going to have to get creative with growing my food! I have two window boxes, a curbside raised bed and a stoop for pots. This book could definitely help!
Love this book - just signed it out from the library, but would love to own a copy!
I'd love to have more tips on how to grow more food in a small space. Thanks!
Oh! SO EXCITING!! We always had gardens when I was a kid and they were huge and wonderful. I finally have a small space of my own and this year am planting all things we want to eat and some herbs - lotsa lavender. My 2 yr old girl is in love with tiny tomatoes so def some plants for her to pull directly off of!
I am excited to plant my first real garden this year. I have plenty of space available, but in the past have only planted a few tomato plants near my house. I could definitely use some guidance as a first-time gardener and would love to get a copy of this book!
i am a very beginner gardener and would love to win a copy of this book! i have a small garden plot for the second year in the backyard. only part of it gets full sun, so some of the things i tried last year didn't really make it. i want to grow a bunch of different herbs (parsley and lemongrass worked great last year, cilantro not so much) and i want to try a spicy pepper like thai red that i can use fresh or dried.
I have this booked checked out of the library right now and it's great!
I'm always excited for gardening season. This year I am especially excited to try watermelon, kale, and dried beans. I am trying lots of new heirloom varieties this year, so almost everything is new and exciting!
I have a plot in a community garden, and container and windowsill gardens in our rental.
I just moved to a new house, so I have to start over. :( Plus my back yard is really shady, so it looks like I'll be doing a front yard garden this year. Most likely a square foot garden. I am excited about everything!!!!
I'm all about the veggies and trying to fit more in, so this would be great! This year, I'm trying to get more things growing on my front porch.
I can't wait to grow peas (my 2 year old son's favorite!) and hot peppers! I have an actual in-the-ground garden (10x30 ft). We considering expanding a portion of it to grow rasperries this year!
The Hubs and I have a community garden plot. I'm excited to grow bush beans for the first time, and big beautiful bell peppers! And of course tomatoes. I'm going to be a busy canner this summer!
I have raised beds and I can't wait to grow my own mixed greens & tomatoes!
I am looking forward to growing a lot of greens this season... chard, mustard, collards, kale, etc. With a short, cool growing season in the mountains of Montana these are somethign I can count on producing for me. I have a super small ground garden space but would like to expand to our deck and patio.
I am mostly container gardening with a few raised beds! Am excited to grow a massive variety of vegetables including cabbage, leeks, potatoes, herbs and tomatoes! yum! Can't wait
I'm so excited to plant new things this year. I bought some great little cucumbers that look like tiny little watermelons. I'm also planting berries and grapes for the first time. I'm so excited for Spring I could burst!
This book looks like a great addition to any gardeners shelf. Winning a copy would be great. Thanks for the opportunity!
I'm starting a new garden this year in a new house, and am SO excited to get started! I'm looking forward to all the basics, but would also like to try raspberries. My parents grew them when I was younger, and I loved taking them right off the canes on a warm summer day. We have a house in the city with a big lot, so we'll probably have one major garden plot, and then a few smaller ones depending on light requirements.
Love finding new blogs, yours is great!
Here in AR. We have a 1/2 acre garden newly established. Our goal is to grow and can as many varieties of heirlooms as 2 people can work and harvest. And, then going on the net, to join swapping seeds forums to give others an opportunity to get in on the heirloom seed saving. ALOT of this is new to us, but we are looking for some great energy (physical) saving tips as our work ahead us will be very taxing physically. Husband and I have elderly parents that are not able to participate and we want to help feed them homegrown healthy food. Their quality of life is important to us!
I would LOVE to be the winner of this book. It sounds incredible
I have such small space to grow things that I'm using what ever I can. I've got patio potatoes in buckets, repurposed a retaining wall into a kitchen garden, tearing up the side lawn to add raised beds and not to mention the patio peppers that go on the front porch. The husband says I can take what I need as long as he gets to keep the garage. :-)
I always love to grow cherry tomatoes and basil, and I've always done it in pots in the past. This year we're in a house with a couple of raised beds, so my gardening skills are going to get a great challenge! Fariy eggplant, snap peas, kale - all new. I'm going to try to do some things from seed for the first time too.
I started a garden last year and some things (tomatoes, peppers) did great while others withered and I couldn't keep them alive (acorn and butternut squash). This year I'm trying a few different things, and bought all heirloom seeds. Hopefully this year will be better! I'm most excited to grow zucchini and peppers.
I rent an apartment, but my landlord graciously allows me to garden in the backyard. I'll be growing tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, rhubarb, and carrots in the ground and dill, chives, peppermint, lavender, cilantro, chamomile, and some other herbs in planters this summer.
We have about 100 sq ft of raised beds, but I'm most excited aboit the asparagus we put in our flower garden last year.... that should be ready for eating in 2012. :)
I have a wonderful staircase up to my garage-top apartment, and it's riddled with pots of herbs, peppers, tomatoes, strawberries... whatever I can keep alive! There are definitely plants I've tried that have failed (peas!) and I'd love some gardening help! Thanks for posting info about the book... if I don't win it, I'll probably buy it. :)