McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers (Paperback)
October 26, 2009 by The Gardener
Filed under Gardening Book Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
McGee (Basic Herb Cookery) and veteran gardening writer Stuckey (Gardening from the Ground Up) share their expertise and experience in the art of container gardening. Armed with this manual, frustrated apartment dwellers can indulge their passion for growing edible things. If there is an available balcony, porch, front or back steps, according to the authors, growing produce in containers can be easy and rewarding. With some limitations, it is even possible to grow foods in a window box or on an indoor windowsill. This compendium of practical advice includes detailed information on the types of containers to use, equipment needed, the right soil, when to plant which seeds and how best to deal with problems such as too much or too little sunlight. They also explain more sophisticated techniques like succession planting, whereby ongoing seasonal planting takes place in the same container. This can yield a harvest of peas in early summer, tomatoes in late summer to early fall and kale that will grow into winter. Included are mouth-watering recipes for harvested container crops. Written for the beginner as well as for those with a background in gardening, McGee and Stuckey’s directions are comprehensive, clearly written and frequently inspiring. Illus.
Product Description
With few exceptions-such as corn and pumpkins-everything edible that’s grown in a traditional garden can be raised in a container. And with only one exception-watering-container gardening is a whole lot easier. Beginning with the down-to-earth basics of soil, sun and water, fertilizer, seeds and propagation, THE BOUNTIFUL CONTAINER is an extraordinarily complete, plant-by-plant guide.
Written by two seasoned container gardeners and writers, THE BOUNTIFUL CONTAINER covers Vegetables-not just tomatoes (17 varieties) and peppers (19 varieties), butharicots verts, fava beans, Thumbelina carrots, Chioggia beets, and sugarsnap peas. Herbs, from basil to thyme, and including bay leaves, fennel, and saffron crocus. Edible Flowers, such as begonias, calendula, pansies, violets, and roses. And perhaps most surprising, Fruits, including apples, peaches, Meyer lemons, blueberries, currants, and figs-yes, even in the colder parts of the country. (Another benefit of container gardening: You can bring the less hardy perennials in over the winter.) There are theme gardens (an Italian cook’s garden, a Four Seasons garden), lists of sources, and dozens of sidebars on everything from how to be a human honeybee to seeds that are All America Selections.
Finally, here’s a book on container gardening that focuses on vegetables (and also herbs, fruits and edible flowers). I was tired of looking through tons and tons of books on container gardening that were full of stuff about houseplants and flowers but had zilch when it came to the edible stuff. Was vegetable gardening out of bounds for apartment dwellers like me? I thought so till I came across this book. This book is a godsend for people who want kitchen gardens of their own but who can only garden with containers.
The book has no photos, only illustrations (but then again, who needs another coffee table kind of book with pretty pictures and little content) but it has lots of good advice and instructions. It starts off with the basics (container types, soil, fertilizing, pests etc.), then it moves on to a hefty section each on vegetables, herbs, fruits and edible flowers. Each section has a number of entries with detailed instructions on the particular veggie/herb/fruit/flower in question. These include stuff like planting, fertilizing, soil depth, plant size, light requirements and so on. Interspersed throughout the book are interesting projects, for example, creating a garden for children or a kitchen garden with an asian/italian/greek theme. All in all, this book is extremely useful and a real treasure.
The Bountiful Container is simply a delight — with it on my bookshelf, I now have the courage to move beyond my tiny pots of basil and jalapenos to the exciting world of zucchini and sugar-snap peas. The detailed discussion of specific plants is invaluable (now I know why my tomato plant did so poorly last year); general commentary on soil additives and the differences between plot and container gardening are informative without being overwhelming. Moreover, the text is interspersed with design projects that are as appealing to the eye as they will be to the stomach. This book is ideal for the casual container gardener who is more concerned with produce than Latin plant names.