The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables: All the know-how and encouragement you need to grow – and fall in love with! – your brand new food garden (Volume 1) (The First-Time Gardener’s Guides, 1)
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You’re excited to plant your first vegetable garden—but where to start? In The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables, you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.
*Winner of the GardenComm 2022 Media Awards Silver Award of Achievement in the Photography/Book General Readership Category*
Homesteader Jessica Sowards, the warm and energetic host of YouTube’s Roots and Refuge Farm, is the perfect teacher for new gardeners, offering not just know-how but inspiration and time-management tips for success.
Before you sink your hands into the soil, she’ll answer all those questions rolling around inside your head:
Where do I put my new garden?How do I prepare the soil?What vegetables should I plant?Is it better to start new plants from seed or should I buy transplants?What about watering, feeding, and taking care of my garden?What do I do if bugs show up?
There are no stupid questions here. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all. Not only will you learn how to prepare, plant, and tend your first vegetable garden, you’ll also learn:
How to design an eco-friendly layoutHow to grow with the seasonsHow to maximize your harvest, even if you only grow in a small space
Jessica wants your first food-growing experience to be a positive one, and she’s prepared to go the distance to make sure tending the earth becomes your new favorite hobby.
A single growing season is all it takes to fall in love with growing your own healthy, organic, nutrient-dense food. With Jessica as your guide, you’ll soon discover all the satisfactions, challenges, and great joys of growing your own food garden.
This book is part of The First-Time Gardener’s Guides series from Cool Springs Press, which also includes The First-Time Gardener: Growing Plants and Flowers and The First-Time Gardener: Raised Bed Gardening. Each book in The First-Time Gardener’s Guides series is aimed at beginner gardeners and offers clear, fact-based information that’s presented in a friendly and accessible way, including step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations throughout.
From the Publisher
Growing with the seasons
To seed or not to seed?
Creating your dream garden
Publisher : Cool Springs Press
Publication date : March 2, 2021
Edition : Illustrated
Language : English
Print length : 176 pages
ISBN-10 : 0760368724
ISBN-13 : 978-0760368725
Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
Dimensions : 8.05 x 0.65 x 10 inches
Part of series : The First-Time Gardener’s Guides
Best Sellers Rank: #498,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #95 in Vegetable Gardening #104 in Organic & Sustainable Gardening & Horticulture
Customer Reviews: 4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 4,621 ratings var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Customers say
Customers find this gardening book excellent for beginners, providing tons of information and answering common questions. The book is easy to understand and read, written in a friendly conversation style, and features beautiful photographs. Customers appreciate the encouragement throughout the book, with one noting how the author’s spirit shines through each page. Customers love gardening at any level, with one review highlighting how it brings the garden to life.
9 reviews for The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables: All the know-how and encouragement you need to grow – and fall in love with! – your brand new food garden (Volume 1) (The First-Time Gardener’s Guides, 1)
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Original price was: $26.99.$15.00Current price is: $15.00.
Jeff Marzano –
Great Info For Getting Started With Gardening
I picked up some good pointers in this book.I guess I’m not exactly a beginner at this point since I’ve been taking care of someone else’s established garden for about 9 years.So I have found out about some of this stuff over those years by talking to other people and on the internet.And a lot of what I have learned matches up with what this book says.Some of the information in this book doesn’t apply for me since I don’t start plants indoors and I don’t used raised beds. So I didn’t read all the pages in this book.However we usually do get tomato plants which were started in a greenhouse by someone else or from places like Home Depot.Some things I’ve learned and can recommend are:Get your soil tested by Cooperative Extension or someplace like that. With fertilizers more is not always better. My cucumber plants keep giving me a lot of foliage and flowers but not very many cucumbers. There’s too much organic material (manure) in my soil and the pH level of the soil is 7.6 which is too alkaline. My soil report says all it needs is small amounts of nitrogen fertilizer right now and only at the beginning of the season.I have saved myself many hours of backbreaking work by covering the empty rows between the plants with a weed barrier fabric. These fabrics allow air and water to get into the soil but it blocks the sunlight to kill the weeds. This book mentions the weed barrier fabrics and also using mulch or compost covered by wood chips for the same purpose which I may do for the spaces between the individual tomato plants.Most cucumber varieties are designed by Nature to climb like a vine. I built some simple circular cages that I place around my cucumber mounds. I use the thin fencing wire with the square openings in it. I tie them into a circle with zip ties. You can make four cuts into the wire where four of the squares intersect. Remove the cross shaped cutout and bend the cut wires back to create a place to reach your hand into the cage. Wear gloves and safety glasses when working with this type or wire. The cut off ends of the wire are sharp and they can swing back and hit someone in the eye. Cut off or bend back the cut off wires at both ends of the cage also.  Books like this talk about organic gardening methods which can apparently take a few years to work well. I use the deadly SEVIN pesticide when my plants first start growing and I even spray the SEVIN into the soil within the rows. But then I switch over to organic pesticides when the plants start getting flowers so as not to harm the bees.I may switch over to soaker hoses this year for watering. Soaker hoses don’t get the leaves of the plants wet. Wet leaves can cause fungal diseases like powdery mildew on cucumbers and zucchini.There are traps that come with bait that are specifically designed to catch Japanese beetles which appear in large numbers at certain times of the year.Here’s a bee safe product to kill the dreaded squash borer moth which destroys zucchini plants:Safer Brand 5163 Caterpillar Killer II Concentrate, 16 Oz
M N –
It Has What You Need!
It is Jessica Sowards who inspired me to want to become a gardener through her Youtube Channel. I’m glad to finally have her book! You get years of wisdom when you buy this book.With this book you have all the information you need to get started, and more. As you garden you’ll need to find solutions to problems as they arise. She encourages you to keep a garden journal to record your outcomes and let the garden teach you valuable lessons. It’s about learning and growing yourself also!She’s honest about the fact that gardening is hard work; that every gardener will make mistakes and sometimes fail; and that there will be situations that cannot be controlled, only overcome. Throughout the book she encourages you to persevere just as she does, because the rewards are worth it. It’s helpful to keep these realities in mind and let go of any romanticized view of gardening.I like that when she offers various alternatives for your garden, she also addresses the way to properly use them and cautions about what could go wrong if you don’t.She has a heart for your success, and tells you in advance so you can avoid setback and discouragement.Just a few highlights of what I appreciate about the book:⦠The foundation of what every garden must have to produce food, the “non-negotiables”, are laid out before you, as well as the “negotiables” which are the decisions you make based on your needs, your landscape conditions, and your personal preferences and creativity.⦠The pros and cons of various options help you make well-informed decisions.⦠Insights about issues I’d never considered are shared in this book. For me, it’s helpful to read it several times to make sure those nuggets of wisdom sink in.⦠It’s written in a friendly, conversational style as if your gardening friend is teaching you — and she is!⦠Jessica is an expert communicator. She knows how to write concisely without unnecessary words. Because it is so well-written, there’s a lot of information, helpful tips and encouragement covering all the bases of growing your own food, packed in a comfortable sized book.⦠Inspiring photos of her garden and the text are artistically arranged to make it a pleasant, relaxing read. It’s packed with info, yet easy on the eyes because it feels more green, than stark white space on the pages.Jessica has a heart for gardening, for people, and for teaching her passion to others. That love certainly comes through her writing.
Andrea Jane –
Full of fantastic information & great tips
I’m gearing up to start my first, proper vegetable garden this Spring/ Summer and have been working to “front load” as much information as possible to, hopefully, have a successful growing season. This book is filled with great information for beginners. I took many, many notes during my reading & am excited to get started! I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in beginning their own vegetable garden.
Christina –
Fantastic resource
Whitty, concise, thoughtful… Excellent resource for a beginner gardener…not at all surprised that once again Jess has produced something so inspiring.
Haven –
Wonderful book for a begginer but maybe not for those who’ve gone through their first year of gardening. Great gift to someone starting their gardening journey.
Amazon Customer –
This is my 8th year gardening. This book has soo much information in it, and I have learned so many new things. It is very well written. Jessica’s passion for gardening and teaching shines through. The full size pictures are awesome. I have recommended this book to many friends and family members! Great buy for first-time gardeners or seasoned pros!
Jérôme SIMON –
Jessica de Roots and Refuge Farm a une manière de décrire et expliquer les choses pour les rendre compréhensibles et transposables. Le livre ne contient pas que des simples explications mais beaucoup de conseils et le partage d’une passion, le jardinage. Je le recommande vivement à toute personne pouvant lire et comprendre l’anglais!
Ana –
Empieza tu huerto y ocupa tu tiempo en algo relajante.
Christiane Klinner –
Excellent advice from an experienced Australia-based passionate veggie gardener