THE VINTAGE FARMHOUSE GARDEN: Your Guide to Creating a Vintage-Inspired Outdoor Space, lovely AND practical!

THE VINTAGE FARMHOUSE GARDEN: Your Guide to Creating a Vintage-Inspired Outdoor Space
RHONDA KAISER
Cool Springs Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$30.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: The Vintage Farmhouse Gardenis the first garden design book to focus on the vintage-inspired farmhouse aesthetic and how to bring it to your outdoor space—no farm required. With the insight and inspiration found in The Vintage Farmhouse Garden, you’ll create a gorgeous, vintage-inspired outdoor space, overflowing with style and charm.

Garden and design influencer Rhonda Kaiser (@southernhomeandfarm) partners vintage-inspired design with the farmhouse aesthetic to make your outdoor space as beautiful and welcoming as possible. Whether it’s by creating a stunning tablescape, arranging a welcoming front porch, designing a peaceful outdoor garden oasis, or displaying a collection of seasonal plants and vintage accessories, Rhonda helps you bring all the classic comforts of a farm home into your garden, no matter where you live.

Inside, you’ll find inspiration on how to:

Turn your farmhouse garden vision into reality

Select and plant vibrant fruits, flowers, and shrubs for your farmhouse garden

Include vintage finds in your garden design

Shape a welcoming space, from your front porch to your back gate

Incorporate and decorate outbuildings like greenhouses and toolsheds to make them as beautiful as they are useful

Add pollinator-friendly plants to your garden

Celebrate the seasons by inviting and entertaining others in your space

Plus, favorite recipes using fresh flavors from the garden

Discover the joys of curating a collection of vintage accessories and showcasing it as part of a well-designed farmhouse garden, overflowing with a colorful collection of edible and ornamental plants. Welcome to The Vintage Farmhouse Garden.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: At last! I'm reviewing an aspirational book, like y'all love to ogle and drool over.

Well...yes, but in a curious way, no. This is not just a book of how to make a pretty garden in a certain old-fashioned model. It's a way to create a beautiful outdoor space to use and enjoy; it's also about getting that space to serve a very practical purpose, attracting pollinators and producing good things in the process.

There are many wonderful things about using plants to help increase the pollinators' food supply. You enjoy the flowers; they enjoy the buffet the flowers represent. A beautiful space to enjoy and live in that's also a haven for life, instead of a deadening array of hybridized-to-uselessness botanical tchotchkes, is a very good thing to create.

start with ideas

move to plans and procedures

The book is a beauty. It's got everything I'd say is important to have in this kind of book: aspiration, inspiration, and how to use your perspiration to make it come true. The price is, for this category of gift books, reasonable; tablet viewing worked very well. A tree book is always the most fun to have for us oldsters, but as a gift I don't know many who would kvetch at either form.

Wonderful self-gift, too!

BUILDING SOIL: A Down-to-Earth Approach: Natural Solutions for Better Gardens & Yards, quality informational book

BUILDING SOIL: A Down-to-Earth Approach: Natural Solutions for Better Gardens & Yards
ELIZABETH MURPHY
Cool Springs Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$26.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Learn what it takes to improve your soil with simple and down-to-earth methods that won’t hurt the environment. It's the ecological solution to a garden of any size! This is your down-to-earth, complete manual for achieving great gardening results with your own rich, organic soil.

How do you recognize healthy soil? How much can your existing soil be improved? What are the best amendments to use for your soil? Let Building Soil answer your questions and be your guide on gardening from the ground up. Fertilizing, tilling, weed management, and irrigation all affect the quality of your soil. Using author Elizabeth Murphy’s detailed instructions, anyone can become a successful soil-based gardener, whether you want to start a garden from scratch or improve an existing garden.

If you want methods that won’t break your back, are good for the environment, and create high-yielding and beautiful gardens of all shapes and sizes, this is the book for you! Create classic landscape gardens, grow a high-yielding orchard, nurture naturally beautiful lawns, raise your household veggies, or run a profitable farm.

A soil-based approach allows you to see not just the plants, but the living system that grows them. Soil-building practices promote more ecologically friendly gardening by:

Reducing fertilizer and pesticide use

Sequestering greenhouse gases

Increasing overall garden productivity

With a detailed discussion and comparison tables on a range of organic fertilizer choices, Building Soil is a simple book full of practical, up-to-date information about building healthy soils. Simple methods perfect for the home gardener’s use put healthy, organic soil within everyone’s reach. You don’t need a degree in soil management to understand this book; you only need a yard or garden and the desire to improve it at the most basic level.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Very practical, brimful of information the novice can use; some information is couched simply so as not to scare the newbies, but could easily prove very helpful to the serious gardener with a soil issue they can't address.

No need to beat around the bush (!) then, is there. Look at the graphic presentation to see if you can work with it. We'll start simple:

Now the more information-laden bits:

It's straightforward, but not made cartoonishly oversimplified. Don't plan on an ebook. The tree book can be carried around in a garden setting, worry-free...who care if you drop a working book? A tablet, now...so tree book all the way.

As gardening books go, this is a very reasonably priced one. A strong value proposition indeed.

VIBRANT HARVEST: Cultivating a Kaleidoscope of Colors in Your Vegetable Garden with Heirlooms, Modern Hybrids, and More

VIBRANT HARVEST: Cultivating a Kaleidoscope of Colors in Your Vegetable Garden with Heirlooms, Modern Hybrids, and More
SANDRA MAO
Cool Springs Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$26.99 all editions, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Vibrant Harvest is the ultimate guide to bringing more color and diversity into your veggie garden (and your diet!) by growing the most colorful veggies on the planet. Fill your garden and plate with a rainbow of flavorful produce with this engaging and visually stunning guide to a Vibrant Harvest.

It’s easy to “eat the rainbow” when you’re growing one right in your own backyard! In Vibrant Harvest, you’ll meet some of the most colorful veggies on the planet and learn how to grow, harvest, and enjoy them. Author Sandra Mao (@sandra.urbangarden) and her color-infused garden hand you all the insight you need to grow a kaleidoscope of heirloom, hybrid, and ancestral vegetables that are not only a feast for the eyes but also nutritional powerhouses.

With this inspiring guide, bringing bright colors and rich flavors into your kitchen has never been simpler or more dynamic. From purple tomatoes, pink beans, yellow carrots, magenta potatoes, and black radishes, to speckled lettuces and orange cucumbers, you’ll find handy advice for growing them all. Plus, learn the best varieties to seek out.

The book is organized into four parts:

Choose Your Plants: First, meet these multihued dynamos via detailed plant profiles organized by both the growing season and the edible portion of each plant—stem, leaf, bud, fruit, pod, or root.

Plan & Start Your Garden: Next, gain insight into planning and installing your garden, from site selection and soil prep, to seed starting and transplanting.

Care for Your Garden: Then, learn the ins and outs of caring for your polychromatic garden and all the plants living in it, including watering, feeding, staking, pruning, and trellising.

Pick, Preserve & Prepare Your Harvest: Finally, discover how to harvest and enjoy your rainbow-hued garden through recipes and easy preservation techniques.

It’s a KALEidoscope of possibilities out there for modern gardeners! Meet dozens of vivid varieties and gain the expertise you need to plant and tend your own super-colorful garden in Vibrant Harvest.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A book I thought I'd mildly snort at...colors matter! faugh!...when I got it, but it's about useful gardening as opposed to ornamental gardening, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

"Eat the rainbow" is actual, serious food science; adding color to your diet has measurable health benefits. If you're going to garden,I say do it to enjoy really fresh foods you wouldn't otherwise have access to; adding the color factor also adds a certain pleasurable frisson to the work as well as the harvest.

two of my favorite veggies in a row!

It's a serious book, about a serious subject...food security, health and lifespan improvement...that people my age need to consider seriously because we didn't when we were younger. If you're under 40, first of all hello! how on earth did you get here of all places?, please learn from my mistake: eat carefully and intentionally as a habit. Go wild on holidays, take the occasional extra cookie, but as your baseline, be very intentional in your eating habits. It pays off in the medium and the long run.

Growing your own is a solid habit to form, as well. No ordinary grocery store will have anything as beautiful as these:

...and there's no sense looking at the pretties unless you know the problems you'll likely face in growing them:

All said and done, this is a great gift to the aspiring gardener, the new homeowner, and the flagging, bored plant butler. And/or yourself.

THE PRESERVER'S GARDEN: How to Grow a Garden for Fermenting, Canning, Pickling, Dehydrating, Freeze Drying, and more

THE PRESERVER'S GARDEN: How to Grow a Garden for Fermenting, Canning, Pickling, Dehydrating, Freeze Drying, and more
STACI HILL & JEREMY HILL
Cool Springs Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$30.00 any edition, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: The Preserver’s Garden is an essential guide to planning and planting a garden specifically for the preservation and long-term storage of the harvest. Discover how to plan, plant, and grow a garden with food preservation and long-term storage in mind—plus, meet seven different preservation techniques.

Growing a garden with the intent to preserve the harvest and improve your self-sufficiency is an entirely different world than growing food for fresh consumption. When growing for preservation, your efforts need to be focused on the promotion of uniform ripening, high yields, and flavor that remains stable through the preservation process. Since the end goal is to have plenty of food to eat for months to come, how do you know how much to plant, which varieties are best, and which preservation method is ideal for each different vegetable and fruit? In The Preserver’s Garden, you’ll learn all that and so much more from a modern farming family with a pantry lined with jar after jar of preserved homegrown treasures, a fully stocked freezer, and endless bags of dehydrated and freeze-dried goodies!

In addition to taking a deep dive into seven different methods of food preservation—including freezing, drying/dehydration, pressure canning, water bath canning, salting, freeze drying, and fermenting—authors Staci and Jeremy Hill of @goosberrybridgefarm teach you how to:

Plan your garden around the veggies your family eats the most.

Figure out how much to grow to meet your preservation goals.

Decide which preservation methods are best for your harvest and your home.

Safely prepare your harvest for processing and preservation.

Achieve success in growing a lot of food organically, with less time and less work.

Also included are 22 in-depth produce profiles—from tomatoes and squash to onions and berries—where you’ll learn specifics about everything from growing requirements and harvesting tips to the best preservation methods and plant care techniques to increase the harvest. It’s time to plan for your family’s future with help from The Preserver’s Garden.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I long for a garden when I read books like this...they're much more aspirational than flower gardens, herbaceous borders, topiary and fountains...fine if you're a king or queen but I'm just your basic queer.

contents page explaining the way we're going

This clear, concise...no wasted words...handsomely designed book is packed with basic concepts, ideas for fillips, and overall inspiration for you to think realistically about your garden plans. It can't be a bad thing to devote some space to planting and nurturing tings that can nourish you in their turn.

Samples of the look follow:

There are chapters on key concepts:

...and key crops everyone always wants to grow:

everyone loves home-grown tomatoes

...and ways to use them:

It was not a bad experience reading the book on a tablet, but what a beautiful thing to see glossy and present on a page!

No matter the format you choose, this is a useful way to spend gifting money on your gardening buddy, on your first-time homebuyer, or yourself.

A YEAR OF GARDEN-INSPIRED LIVING: Season by Season, inspirational as well as aspirational

A YEAR OF GARDEN-INSPIRED LIVING: Season by Season
LINDA VATER
Cool Springs Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$30.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A Year of Garden-Inspired Living is a giftable homage to living seasonally and is filled with inspiration for creating a garden-inspired life of grace and abundance. Bring simplicity and grace into your life, garden, home, and community with this treasured collection of ideas and daily inspiration from garden lifestyle guru Linda Vater.

Whether it’s connecting with a neighbor over a bowl of homemade soup, displaying a much-adored collection of books, creating personalized seed packets, setting a beautiful seasonal tablescape, or compiling a basket of comforts for someone in need, author Linda Vater (@potagerblog) has gathered a wealth of reflections on how to make the ordinary extraordinary and bring the joy of the garden’s seasons back into your life.

Each page features a narrative story about a special life moment, followed by an idea for bringing that moment to fruition in your own life, all organized by the season. Beautiful watercolor illustrations add further inspiration and a spark of creativity to the notion on each page.

A small sampling of the guidance found inside includes:

Giving a house blessing to a brand-new homeowner

Picking a seasonal wardrobe “piece” and letting it shine

Spreading seeds in an old spice jar

Being intentionally inefficient

Wearing your garden boots with a flouncy dress

Welcoming friends and neighbors to cut bouquets from your garden

Having a “ladybug party” for the children in your life

Creating herbal bouquets for cooking

Making and displaying decorative fall leaf bouquets

And so much more!

A Year of Garden-Inspired Living offers an elegant yet easy way to bring the joys and textures of seasonal living into your daily life, welcoming peace and connection to your days and restoring the balance of nature’s seasons in your home and life.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Charming, gentle anecdotes centered on a woman's garden as she moves through her very aspirationally bourgeois year.

Interesting reading for a resolute urbanite who quails inwardly at the notion of suburbia. I was fascinated by this Junior-League vision of a leisurely life I'd thought was dead. No one I know who isn't retired has this kind of time to putter and potter and coddiwomple hither, thither, and yon to be a willing slave to a bunch of botanical divas.

Absorbing, in a very retro way. Belong to a gardening club? The girls'll love this!

we're going hard on seasonality

This is, I'd guess, a gift item for your older female friends who do the relaxed lifestyle and would enjoy learning how to put some intentionality into the day. Rhythms of the seasons always make life feel purposeful, add that sense of being in a world larger and more...complete...than one's private world.

These samples of the design style might tell you what my review can't:

You get the picture...all very focused, true to an aesthetic, and sharply defined by softness and gentle colors.

THE SQUARE FOOT GARDENING PLANNER: A 3-Year Journal for Recording the Planning, Planting, and Care of Your Square Foot Garden

THE SQUARE FOOT GARDENING PLANNER: A 3-Year Journal for Recording the Planning, Planting, and Care of Your Square Foot Garden
Square Foot Gardening Foundation (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$22.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The Square Foot Gardening Planner contains planting charts, seed and supply trackers, variety reviews, activity logs, design templates, and other items to plan, plant, and tend a SFG. The one-and-only official planner of the Square Foot Gardening Foundation, filled with all the planning tools and data-tracking logs generations of Square Foot Gardeners have been asking for!

Whether you’ve had a SFG for decades or you’re just getting started, The Square Foot Gardening Planner allows you to record all the happenings in your SFG for three full years. Planning a SFG is different than planning a traditional garden. The intensive planting, prescribed spacing, and succession cropping used in the SFG method mean a greater need to plan in advance and keep track of changes. This planner gives you all the tools you need to do just that.

Blank design templates enable you to easily plan each grid square, while planting logs keep your seed-sowing and transplanting efforts on track. Organize chores, record compost additions, and track crop performance in dozens of handy, easy-to-use charts throughout the pages.

Logs and charts found inside include:

Square-by-square planning guides

Seed inventory log

Gardening supplies inventory

Pruning and staking log

Pest and disease tracking

Seed sowing log (for indoors and out)

Transplanting log

By-the-square succession planting tracker

Harvest date and yield records

Variety reviews

End-of-season notes

Daily, weekly, and monthly journal entries

And so much more!

The color-coded pages keep each year artfully organized, and the bright illustrations make this planner a joy to use. It’s the perfect companion for millions of Square Foot Gardeners around the globe.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's time to start next year's garden plans...it's never a bad time to start, frankly. December, in the global north, is the best month to look at the relatively bare ground to think over the possibilities, assess the work load, contemplate the investment, decide on the most likely way to maximize your harvest for money put out.

The way the climate is changing, you'll be wise to begin looking at solutions to food security like this. A small-scale setup is far better able to respond to disasters, to change cropping patterns, to keep the real world in mind. Industrial agriculture can sustain you while you're practicing on the square-foot plans in this book.

It's clear, it's simple, and if you're motivated to keep up with a plan better than wingin' it, this is a one-stop shop. For yourself or a giftee with climate resilience on their mind, this is a lovely, practical package deal.

A view of the basics above...they also provide blanks to photocopy or adapt as you please.

One of the biggest issues stopping people from launching in to projects like gardening is they have to come up with A System. Can't plant stuff if there's not a plan and expect the results to be...anything, really. It's hard enough WITH a system to battle the pests.

A fine launching pad to practical crop-gardening success, inexpensive enough to be a good gift to your budget as well as your giftee. I can't quite finish out that fifth star because I haven't used the information for myself; it's the concept and presentation I rate highly.