Grow the Good Life: Why a Vegetable Garden Will Make You Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise [Hardcover]

Michele Owens (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 15, 2011

A lively, passionate argument for the backyard vegetable garden, drawing on science, history, and stories from the author’s garden.

 

Our parents saw supermarkets and processed foods as the height of convenience. But nothing is more
convenient than grocery shopping in the backyard. A vegetable garden offers the best defense against
rising food prices, the most environmentally sound way to eat, and better exercise than any gym. It will
turn anyone into a wonderful cook, since nothing tastes more vibrant than homegrown. And it can take
less time every week than a trip to the supermarket.

In Grow the Good Life, Michele Owens, an amateur gardener for almost two decades, makes an entertaining and persuasive case for vegetable gardens. She starts with two simple but radical ideas: Growing food on a small scale is easy, and it is absurdly rewarding.

With her wry, funny, and accessible approach, Owens helps beginning gardeners overcome obstacles that keep them from planting a few seedlings every spring. She explains why dirt isn’t dirty; the health benefits of growing one’s own food; and that vegetable gardens are not antithetical to the frantic pace of modern life, but simple and undemanding if intelligently managed.

Grow the Good Life is not just another how-to.  Instead, it will teach you the true fundamentals of vegetable growing: how to fit a garden into your life and why it’s worth the trouble.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Not only does Owens make an utterly convincing case––in terms of health––for getting out your shovel and creating a vegetable garden, her enthusiasm for the sheer fun of the endeavor is bound to win you over.”  Ruth Kassinger, author of Paradise Under Glass

“Michele Owens is truly the most eloquent, cosmopolitan, and opinionated garden writer since Katharine White. In Grow the Good Life, she makes a passionate and compelling case for returning vegetable gardening to its rightful place in the day-to-day lives of every American family.  It is a witty, entertaining, and highly persuasive read.”  Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants

About the Author

Michele Owens is a cofounder of Garden Rant, one of the most popular and influential gardening blogs. Her articles about gardening have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine and Organic Gardening. She lives in Saratoga Springs and Salem, NY.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books (February 15, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1605295892
• ISBN-13: 978-1605295893
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #544,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michele Owens is a joyful vegetable gardener of two decades. She is a founding partner of Garden Rant, one of the most popular and influential gardening blogs, and writes about gardening for publications that have included O, The Oprah Magazine, Garden Design, and Organic Gardening.

She is also the co-author of three nationally best-selling business books, Executive Warfare, Career Warfare, and Brand Warfare, with former John Hancock CEO David F. D'Alessandro. Brand Warfare was named one of the best business books of 2001 by Library Journal.

She is the former chief speechwriter for Governor William F. Weld of Massachusetts and worked on his 1996 Senate campaign. She was also a staff speechwriter for another distinctive voice in American politics, Governor Mario Cuomo of New York.

She lives with her family in Saratoga Springs and Salem, NY.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Have your shovel ready... February 20, 2011

By Carol J. Michel

Format:Hardcover

Half-way through this book, you'll be looking outside at whatever plot of land you have, be it containers on a deck, a small urban yard, an expansive suburban sprawl, or acreage in the country and if you don't already have a vegetable garden, you'll be planning where you'll put yours. Or if you already consider yourself a vegetable gardener, you'll be more excited than usual to go out and plant again.

This is not your typical "how to" book on vegetable gardening. You'll find no lists of what to grow, when to plant, when to harvest. Instead, Owens mixes in her own personal experience of growing vegetables with information from various studies to provide a compelling case for the vegetable garden. She helps us all understand not only why we want to grow vegetables, but also how easy it can be to do so and how doing so nourishes us in many ways. Read it to gain the confidence to grab a shovel and start your own garden. Or read it to be re-inspired if you already grow vegetables.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative, persuasive and pragmatic March 3, 2011

By Kerry Trueman

Format:Hardcover

If you're thinking about planting a kitchen garden this spring, do yourself a favor and read this terrific how-to cover to cover first. Owens takes a radically refreshing approach to gardening that is sure to inspire both seasoned gardeners and newbies.

Grow The Good Life is a fast, fun read, but with all the great tips and insights it contains, delivered in Owens' witty, down-to-earth voice, it deserves to become a classic. If ever a book could compel folks to get off the sofa, go offline and head outdoors, this is the one.

And boy, do we need some prodding to get us growing more of our own produce! Owens starts off with a thoughtful exploration of why so few of us bother to plant vegetable gardens--currently, less than 2 percent of Americans grow any of our own food--and then makes an eloquent, convincing case for why we ought to give it a try.

If you think gardening is too much hard work, or takes up too much time, or means you have to run out and buy a bunch of specialty tools and strange chemicals, think again. Owens explains that the key to successful gardening is to cultivate a healthy soil that will give you healthy plants--and she explains how easy it is to do that through the simple no-till method of gardening known as sheet mulching or lasagna gardening.

It's no coincidence that Rodale Books is the publisher of Grow The Good Life. After all, "healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy people" was the mantra of J.I. Rodale, the organic farm and garden visionary who launched the Rodale publishing empire back in 1942. He also established the non-profit 'test farm' that has been on the cutting edge of sustainable agriculture and is now known as the Rodale Institute, located in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.

The Rodale family continues to be at the vanguard of forward-thinking farming, providing invaluable research on the nutritional and environmental benefits of organic agriculture and pioneering such farming innovations as the no-till roller crimper.

Owens applies the same principles to the home garden, giving us the information we need to grow delicious, nutritious food while replenishing the soil, reinvigorating our bodies and souls, and, oh, by the way, beautifying our yards! Grow The Good Life is simply the best book on growing your own veggies that I've read in decades.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Leave This Book Inspired February 15, 2011

By Jeff Gillman

Format:Hardcover

There are a lot of books about gardening out there. Books that tell you how to grow things, why you must grow things in a particular way, what to grow, what diseases will ravish your garden, etc. This isn't really one of those books. Instead, this is a book by a person in love with their garden who wants to share the happiness that gardening can bring with the reader.

Sure, there's information on good and bad gardening practices (very well-researched - I was one of those called upon to offer critiques on the scientific portions of the book - critiques which were taken to heart and applied by the author). But the soul of this book is how enriching gardening can be to your life and the lives of those around you. This is offered by way of personal experiences expertly mixed with scientific information and current events to produce an easy to read and highly informative text. The writing is infectious and you'll soon find yourself turning pages to find out more about garden coaches, soils, root cellars, and the food that you can produce on your own land. This is a fun read and, if I had a neighbor or relative who I wanted to inspire to get outdoors and do something, this is the gift I would give them (I'd give it to them around March or so that they'd be able to get right out there and garden!).

You'll leave this book wanting to dig your hands into the soil and grow something - and I think that's the most important and meaningful thing I can say about it. This is a work which will inspire you to get out there and grow something. And in the process you'll find yourself learning!

A great book for the experienced gardener, and an exceptional one for the newbie.