1. The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide by Carl Elliott & Rob Peterson - this is a step-by-step guide to gardening specifically here in our neck of the woods. In searching the internet, we have found many such guides for other areas of the country. This particular one is put out by Seattle Tilth so we would definitely encourage new gardeners to go out and find their local tilth or other gardening association and see if they have similar publications. A book like this will ensure your success by not only making sure you are planting crops appropriate for your area, but it will also give you the specific times of year to plant those crops for the best yields for your climate.
2. How To Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons - Again, a step-by-step method for utilizing small spaces. This book focuses on the Grow Biointensive method of gardening which basically throws out the rule book when it comes to how much space your crops need to grow in. From soil preparation and composting to planting timetables and guidelines, you can't miss a beat with these easy to follow illustrations and instructions. The charts are specific and easy to read and the illustrations make each concept very easy to understand and follow through on. We have more than doubled our yields this year using the principles from this book.
3. Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman - Wanting to round out our Victory Garden with a full year of production, we found this book has it all. There are plans to follow with illustrations for trellises, cold frames and cloches as well as Coleman's own tweaks to the traditional schedules and methods associated with each season of planting and harvesting. We have been brainstorming ideas all year about how to make our Victory Garden a year-round success and this book started making those new ideas a solid reality for us from the moment we started scanning it in the store.
As far as other resources go, we definitely recommend community. Whether you find a local food gardening organization (like our West Seattle Edible Gardening Group) or look to the internet for online communities, you will find ideas, inspiration and support from those of like minds. There are days when the peppers just aren't working out or your cucumbers are starting to look a little dull and the only place you can turn is to other gardeners. Building this network is important and has definitely helped us out immensely along the way. Here are a few we use most frequently:
1. Master Gardener Clinics - our master gardeners are at the local farmers markets and even our neighborhood hardware/garden store once a week. This gives us access to an "expert" in the field of gardening that allows us to ask questions that might stump us otherwise.
2. Blotanical.com - This gardener's networking/social site is very helpful and informative. The most help we've found comes from being able to browse through so much information in one place being posted by real people like ourselves who are doing the same things we are. Being able to read their information as well as communicate with them directly has been a big help this year with some of our gardening we were a little more unfamiliar with (just exactly what IS rapini supposed to look like??).
3. Similar to Blotanical, find other bloggers who can inspire you as well as give you information. We have found a great deal of inspiration from Red White and Grew and visit it almost daily. We also look to other friend's blogs like One Green Generation to gain insight and inspiration to keep going when those overwhelming days come around. And, now, we have this blog, The Victory Garden Alliance Blog, to draw information and inspiration from! WOOHOO!!
4. Farmers markets - Last but certainly not least in the area of community, we highly recommend getting out to your local farmers markets and getting to know those farmers around you. They are a great resource for questions regarding what grows best in your area (if they are local, you can grow the same stuff they are!) and for asking questions about growing and harvesting. We have built some great relationships with our local farmers market vendors and they have proven on more than one occasion to be a fount of information as well as a great kick in the pants when we have needed some motivation. These folks have been at this for a while and their stories of how they did what they do and why they do it is nothing short of inspiring.
5. Local gardening organizations - We were recently discovered by a group of edible gardeners right here in West Seattle where we live. All of these gardeners are, in a sense, Victory Gardeners whether they identify as such or not. Either way, their input and suggestions have been great for us to plug in to. New ideas and innovation abound with this group who, like us, are gardening in some pretty interesting urban spaces.
So there you have our resource recommendation list.
When people ask us for advice on getting started, the most important wisdom we can pass on is: Start small. Just do one thing that inspires you or makes you happy. If you really like peas, plant a spring crop that grow quickly and you can eat right away. That will give you some instant gratification and keep you motivated. Once you master that one thing, move on to the next adding one thing at a time as you can handle it. We started with peas, added tomatoes, then more tomatoes, then beans, then more tomatoes... LOL You get the idea. Now this year we have more variety and over all diversity than we ever thought we could manage. But we did it one step at a time and with a whole lot of experimentation and help from the resources we listed previously.
Get a few good books, hook up with a diverse community both online and in your local area and just go for it! What's the worse that can happen? You'll grow a few veggies your first year, you'll learn more about where your limits are and aren't and the next year who knows... you might end up with an Edible Jungle Paradise of your own.
talk to you soon...
The Shibaguyz
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