Grow Great Grub, by Gayla Trail

goals for this summer: grow things. cook more. explore the city on foot. spend maximum time on porch.

2:41 PM Jun 5th via HootSuite

Yes, I just quoted myself. But with this review, so closely tied to my all-important summer goals, I figured I’d get personal. (And if 140-character broadcasts to faceless internet followers aren’t personal, what is?) To begin, some background. I’ve never grown anything. Maybe a wilty sprout in an egg carton section in my elementary school days. I struggle to keep houseplants alive sometimes. But I love the idea of growing things, on nurturing something much less low maintenance than a child or pets. I also love to eat (also making plants much more appropriate than children or pets).

When Gayla Trail’s Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces found its way to me in the late spring, I knew it was a sign. I would grow things. First, a confession: I did not grow organic things. I had a very limited opportunity to secure soil, seeds, etc. and the organic products were not easily available. I also figured it was my first shot, and a little juicing could only help my initial efforts. That said, Gayla (we’re on a first name basis, and I quote her all the time to my friends) made me feel like I COULD do it. I had visions of myself brewing kelp tea to feed to my plants potassium and starting a worm compost under my sink (I really still want to do this, but I’m a little nervous about taking the leap. I’m not squeamish and I am a composting fanatic — I even have a favourite compostable, which is egg shells, in case you were wondering — but one does not take worms and rotting food under the sink lightly, and I think I could use some one-on-one coaching. If you’ve done it, please share your wisdom!)

Getting my hands dirty.

The best thing about this book is that it focuses on ways to create an urban garden with whatever you have (for me, some semi-sunny porch space). Gayla goes into choosing containers, finding appropriate plants for your space, companion plants for pots, even rotating your crops (even if that only means swapping pots next year). The gorgeous photos of plants bursting out of trash cans and coffee containers are incredibly encouraging, as is Gayla’s personal story of her early gardening forays in university. She taught herself, learned from trial and error, and now is a garden guru. Surely, I thought, I can grow a few things on my porch.

The book follows all the steps of planting: planning, sprouting seeds, planting, caring for your plants, and dealing with insects, before going into detail on all of the common things you’d plant. The plant profiles were enormously helpful, providing guidance about planting times, sun exposure, seed depth, succession planting, and distinguishing between various varieties of a given plant. She also provides recipes just in case you don’t know what to do with your abundant harvest.

The end of the planting phase. Ta-da!

For my own attempts at agriculture, I decided to take the easy route by transplanting grape tomato, basil and cilantro plants, and trying to grow beans (which Gayla assured me are hardy) from seed. And for the most part, it wasn’t as scary as I thought. My basil plant is a machine, and I use it in everything I can. The tomatoes suffered a brief setback when I went away, but they’re on the path to recovery — I ate my first red tomato a few days ago. The cilantro, I’m afraid, has passed on. But I’ll be replacing it shortly with some mint I’ve cut from my friend’s garden, which is rooting nicely in a glass jar (making plants from more plants is also quite the thrill. Feels like cheating somehow). And the beans, oh the beans, my pride and joy. Ever since I saw the first sprouts push through the soil, I was hooked. I understood completely how Thoreau could have written a whole chapter about them in Walden. They are hardy, as promised, and they grow quickly.

The beans! Thoreau would be so proud.

I learned an enormous amount reading this book, and admittedly, some of it escaped me. It’s not necessarily a book for complete beginners (I still had some questions that probably meant I should have started withGardening for Dummies), but unlike a dry how-to, this book really shines with its balance of the personal and the informative. I flew through the chapters, actually reading for pleasure, and the beautiful design and helpful sidebars also did their part to make this completely foreign (to me) information accessible. I may not have grown an organic garden yet, but I’ll keep Grow Great Grub at hand, because that I know I’ll come back to it as my plants and my inner gardener continue to grow.

Get to know Gayla on a first-name basis at YouGrowGirl.com.