Plant Grow Harvest Repeat

November 15, 2021
Seed to Fork blogger Cowden debuts with a comprehensive guide to succession gardening, a method that focuses on how “various ecosystems succeed one another across generations.” The program involves fostering “plant diversity of both perennials and annuals to weather seasonal challenges with ease,” Cowden writes, and after surveying what lessons the wild has to teach about growth (prairies grow “modestly in the shoulder seasons and robustly in summer”), the author moves to the home garden, for both food and flowers. She offers advice for interplanting (rather than overplanting), interspersing flowers (marigolds make “willing companions” in food gardens), direct sowing (it’s a “marathon, not a sprint”), getting the right amount of sunlight, and gardening year-round (“let your seasons bump into one another”). As well, Cowden provides directions for making organic fertilizer and for no-till soil tending, and attracting insects and pollinators. The photos are gorgeous and inspiring, as is her writing: “The garden is never static except in photos,” she writes, and “succession gardening is a way of life, an act of hope and renewal.” This master class will entice seasoned gardeners and newbies alike.

February 15, 2022
The author's efforts to wring as much production as possible from her home garden during Minnesota's short growing season begat this inventive, commonsensible, effectively illustrated guide. Cowden advises fellow gardeners in extending and deepening their own growing seasons through succession planting, interplanting, sowing seeds indoors for early plantings (and harvests!), and the liberal use of outdoor coverings. While the somewhat loose organization will be helped by an expected index, Cowden still offers a bounty of pull-out tables listing and describing varieties of fruits and veggies (e.g., strawberries, native edible trees, brassicas, beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes), with a laser focus on timing: days to maturity, early- and late-season succession timetables, seasonal task lists, even succession of annual flowers, which attract all-important pollinators. Cowden nicely embellishes her text with advice on, for example, making a pot out of newspaper and how many years it takes various fruit plants to produce (strawberries take one, pears seven). A useful guide for readers in any hardiness zone, but especially those whose growing season is pinched--and just in time for the 2022 growing year.

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