Food Grown Right in Your Backyard [Paperback]

Colin Mccrate (Author), Brad Halm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2012

As the founders behind the Seattle Urban Farm Company, Colin McCrate and Brad Halm have heard it all: My backyard is too small; how can I make space for a garden? Do I really need to buy fertilizer? What on earth is that creature crawling on the tomatoes? My crops took off and the zucchini are in the sidewalk who has time to harvest this all?! FOOD GROWN RIGHT, IN YOUR BACKYARD is a primer for these questions and more.
In response to the rising interest in homegrown foods, the Seattle Urban Farm Co. builds vegetable gardens for everyone from busy families to restaurants. Along the way, Colin and Brad teach beginner growers from all walks of life the techniques of organic food production. In this full color, beautifully photographed guide, they prove that anyone can develop a green thumb, as they show readers how to build a garden from the ground up, explain general garden basics, discuss the best types of crops to try, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

McCrate and Halm prove that anyone can develop a green thumb. ---Urban Farm Magazine

Featured as a "Best Beach Reads 2012: Green Home and Gardening Books for the Summer" -Huffington Post Green

"If only all textbooks were this pretty. Founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Co. have created a terrifically informative, nicely photographed guide to gardening--not just for Western Washington, but for any planting zone." -Edible Seattle

"[Food Grown Right] teaches beginners the basics, like where to put their gardens, how to test their soil and how to keep their plants alive." -The Akron Beacon Journal

"The cofounders of Seattle Urban Farm Co.--a nationally recognized outfit that has helped hundreds of families, schools and restaurants design and implement urban gardens--share the wisdom they have accumulated over the years in this overstuffed, lively and personable tome."  -Cascadia Weekly

With gorgeous photos and conversational writing, the authors lay out an easy-to-follow plan. ---Everett Herald

About the Author

Colin McCrate and Brad Halm started the Seattle Urban Farm Co. in the spring of 2007 to answer one simple question: Does anybody need help setting up a vegetable garden? Turns out, quite a few. In addition to building gardens, including the award-winning, rooftop design for Seattle's Bastille restaurant, and providing private gardening instruction, they teach community classes and lead urban farming workshops. After getting their start working on farms and studying organic food in the Midwest for several years, McCrate and Halm now live in Seattle.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books (April 2, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594856834
• ISBN-13: 978-1594856839
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Region > Pacific Northwest
  • #34 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Technique > Urban

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of information very clearly written for beginners May 14, 2012

By Shala Kerrigan TOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Food Grown Right In Your Backyard : A Beginner's Guide to Growing Crops at Home by Colin Mc Crate and Brad Halm is the next step for people who've started on the path to a more self-sufficient lifestyle and want more information on growing food at home.

It's written for beginners and has detailed information about how to grow vegetables, berries and some fruits. It's written for the serious beginner who really wants to learn a lot more. Rather than being about how to maximize growing area, this is more about how to grow food.

It starts from the very basics, choosing the place and size for your garden, figuring out which areas get the most sun and how much space you have to work in and how best to work in that space, containers, or a simple raised bed. Then it goes into soil, explaining how to test soil, and how to add things to it to make a better growing medium. In depth information about different compost types and how to maintain compost are helpful for people who want to start composting. They also talk about where organic fertilizers can be helpful. There is also a lot of detail about irrigation, crop rotation and climate. They explain how to use row covers, build trellises and other structures for things that need support.

Then it gets into the types of plants that people are most likely to grow with lots of information about how to grow them, the various troubles that particular plant can have and how best to harvest it. Lots of detail helps you decide what you're willing to do and what you might not want to start yet because of the time investment.

There is also a wonderful chapter on troubleshooting.

I really recommend this for people looking to step up their home food gardening.
[I received a complimentary copy of the book to review on my craft blog- Don't Eat the Paste. My reviews are always my honest opinion]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars BEST RESOURCE for setting up a backyard veggie garden April 23, 2012

By hella_bosque

Format:Paperback

THIS BOOK IS THE ONLY RESOURCE YOU WILL EVER NEED. I've been dying to set up a backyard veggie garden, but had no idea how to lay out the beds, how to prepare the soil, how to select plants for my climate, how to start the seeds and transplant them, how to fertilize...and then I found this goldmine of a book. I get so overwhelmed trying to look up gardening guides online and was so ecstatic to find a book version that literally contained ALL in the information I was looking for, wihtout being intimidatingly long. The lay-out of the book is really easy to follow and gave me great suggestions on every detail. I also really love how it helped me form a plan and guided me though all the different steps. Another nice detail is that they make it easy for people with no space for vegetable beds to start a container garden...I lent this book to my friend who lives in an apartment and she was stoked. I now have my beds ready to go and my little seeds germinating...I can't wait to transplant! Fledgling gardens who want to grow their own food NEED to have this knowledgable book. Plus, the two dudes who wrote it are so handsome...happy digging!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The all in one guide for urban farming March 4, 2013

By Daniel Hoang

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought a house in Seattle about a year ago on a 3,000 square foot lot. Last Summer, we installed a chicken coop. This Summer, we're taking the next step and starting our first garden.

A lot of beginning garden books gloss over important topics and don't really give you a true playbook to get started. Food Grown Right starts with building a garden. I found the best spot in my backyard that had the most sun from beginning to end of the season. I considered the options for creating beds including mounds, raised beds, or containers. I followed the instructions to build three cedar raised beds including buying, cutting, and assembling the lumber.

One of my favorite parts of the book is the month by month guide that shows you what you should be doing. In March, I'm really just doing prep work to get the garden in shape. All this weeding and cleaning will pay dividends once the planting season begins. Each month is also outlined with what to plant and what you should be doing. For each plant, there's a section of the book that goes into details on how to tend for the plant. Another neat feature is what you'll learn by planting. For example, corn needs to be planted close to each other so that they'll pollinate by the wind.

Most of my other garden books are put back on the shelf. I have my "Food Grown Right" book next to my garden tools. It'll be my Spring and Summer playbook. Highly recommend this book to help you get started.