Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting
by R.J. Ruppenthal
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Book Summary Information
Author: R.J. RuppenthalEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-11-05
ISBN: 160358028X
Number of pages: 178
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Book Reviews of Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting
Book Review: No Excuses Gardening
Summary: 5 Stars
Beware. This is a dangerous book. Once you have read it, you will not be able to say: "I don't have enough space (or light, or the right climate, or soil) to grow any food." You'll have to find some other excuse.
Faced with the recognition of climate change, energy depletion, and biofuel competition, even urban dwellers, says R.J. Ruppenthal, may have to "relearn basic food production skills in a hurry, if we are to survive and thrive in this new world" (p. x). Fresh Food From Small Spaces gives you a mini-course in urban food production and encourages you to practice many of the basic gardening techniques we normally associate with large suburban lots and small farms.
What can you grow and where can you grow it? According to Ruppenthal, you can grow most of the usual vegetables (potatoes, beans, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, etc.) and many fruits and berries in containers on balconies, on windowsills, in tiny patio spaces, and in small city backyards. His list of grow-your-own food also includes other strategies you might not have thought of as "gardening," but are equally valuable: growing sprouts (more nutritious than some grains), making fermented foods such as yogurt and kefir (as well as sauerkraut and kimchi), and raising mushrooms. And then there are chickens and bees, and oh, yes, worms and compost. As I said, once you've read and considered Ruppenthal's suggestions, you have no excuse. If you're willing to put in the effort, he says, there's no such thing as "not enough" of whatever it takes to produce up to twenty percent of your own food and enable you to eat homegrown food (as his family does) 365 days a year.
But why bother? Why go to the trouble, when every urban dweller is within a stone's throw of a supermarket? Because, Ruppenthal says, our food supply is not as secure as we think, and in these uncertain times, it is prudent to prepare for short- and long-term disruptions in the food supply. The author says he's not a survivalist, but the strategies and methods he outlines in the final chapter may help urban and suburban residents function in the event of a major disruption, or in a time when cheap resources (oil and gas) are dwindling. And in the meantime, he suggests (and I agree) that we can all move closer to "sustainability living," even when resources are abundant. We need to take charge of our food, he says, and stop trusting industrial agriculture to feed us. (It can't, not forever.) We need to change the world, and we can only do it from the ground up.
An index might have made this passionate, highly readable book a little easier to use, but there are helpful notes and references, an excellent resource list, and much of the information you need to start on a path to square-inch gardening.
Go for it. You have no excuse.
More Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting reviews:
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Summary of Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting
Books on container gardening have been wildly popular with urban and suburban readers, but until now, there has been no comprehensive "how-to" guide for growing fresh food in the absence of open land. Fresh Food from Small Spaces fills the gap as a practical, comprehensive, and downright fun guide to growing food in small spaces. It provides readers with the knowledge and skills necessary to produce their own fresh vegetables, mushrooms, sprouts, and fermented foods as well as to raise bees and chickens--all without reliance on energy-intensive systems like indoor lighting and hydroponics.Readers will learn how to transform their balconies and windowsills into productive vegetable gardens, their countertops and storage lockers into commercial-quality sprout and mushroom farms, and their outside nooks and crannies into whatever they can imagine, including sustainable nurseries for honeybees and chickens. Free space for the city gardener might be no more than a cramped patio, balcony, rooftop, windowsill, hanging rafter, dark cabinet, garage, or storage area, but no space is too small or too dark to raise food.With this book as a guide, people living in apartments, condominiums, townhouses, and single-family homes will be able to grow up to 20 percent of their own fresh food using a combination of traditional gardening methods and space-saving techniques such as reflected lighting and container "terracing." Those with access to yards can produce even more.Author R. J. Ruppenthal worked on an organic vegetable farm in his youth, but his expertise in urban and indoor gardening has been hard-won through years of trial-and-error experience. In the small city homes where he has lived, often with no more than a balcony, windowsill, and countertop for gardening, Ruppenthal and his family have been able to eat at least some homegrown food 365 days per year. In an era of declining resources and environmental disruption, Ruppenthal shows that even urban dwellers can contribute to a rebirth of local, fresh foods.Gardening & Horticulture Books
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