February Book Club: Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook
Written by Ron Kujawski and Jennifer Kujawaski
This is an excellent reference for planning, scheduling, and learning about the most common garden tasks and chores. Here are some of the things I found most helpful.
Planning: The book starts with advice on how to plan your garden; the basics of how much and where to plant, echoing the Right Plant, Right Place, Right Time mantra I’m always repeating. The authors’ other big tip for beginning gardeners is to “think small,” and resist getting in over your head with planting too much. I admit this is my downfall. It’s incredibly hard to read 200 pages of info on all the plants you could be growing and then only plant a few varieties!
Scheduling: This aspect is where Week-by-Week really shines. It’s organized sort of like a diary or dated planner, but instead of dates it shows time stamps revolving around your first and last frost dates. Once you figure those out for your location, you can fill in the exact dates as they apply to you (i.e., “4 Weeks Before Average Date of last Frost” is March 19 in my case). Then you have a detailed guide of what to plant, maintain, and harvest for each week. Ron and Jennifer have left blanks to fill in dates, as well as journaling pages so that you can make notes each year about your own garden and start to notice trends. They encourage you to write all over the book and I 100% agree. Make notes in all your garden books, especially if you tried the advice and it really did or didn’t work for you.
Instruction: In addition to the planning and scheduling, the handbook includes explanation and instruction on how to actually do the chores that are recommended for that particular season. This is great for beginning gardeners who might see a March task such as “harden off lettuce seedlings before planting,” and wonder what it the world it means to “harden off” something. Never fear, there’s a side bar explaining what it means and how to do it right there on page 62. (BTW, it’s the process of getting seedlings that started indoors acclimated to the harsher outdoor conditions by exposing them to gradually more and more hours outside over the course of about a week).
Book Design: As indicated by the title, this is a handbook and it’s mean to be used as such. I already mentioned the journaling pages, but other features of the the design make it easy to keep handy for regular reference. It’s spiral bound so it lays flat, which is great for writing. The cover is glossy to repel dirt and water when you carry it out to the garden. There is an index, so you can easily find info about a certain plant throughout the book. And there are resources listed for informational websites, retailers, and other helpful publications, but as the book was published over 10 years ago, they might not be the most up-to-date.
I really enjoy these week-by-week or month-by-month type of gardening books and I have several that I reference often along with a multitude of other garden calendars and planning tools. This one will definitely be added to the mix and I’d recommend it if you have a focus on growing vegetables.
But be warned, if you’re like me and have trouble starting small, this book will offer weekly temptation to plant more and more as you read about all the possibilities for what you could be growing in any given week.
And of course, if you want a garden plan, schedule, and instruction tailored just for you and focused on the veggies you want to grow, book a garden planning consultation with me.
It’s just about time for planting in Nashville, so read up, get planning, and find a way to grow.
