Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces [Paperback]

Gayla Trail (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2010

Your patio, balcony, rooftop, front stoop, boulevard, windowsill, planter box, or fire escape is a potential fresh food garden waiting to happen. In Grow Great Grub, Gayla Trail, the founder of the leading online gardening community (YouGrowGirl.com), shows you how to grow your own delicious, affordable, organic edibles virtually anywhere.                  
 
Grow Great Grub packs in tips and essential information about:
 
- Choosing a location and making the most of your soil (even if it’s less than perfect)
- Building a raised bed, compost bin, and self-watering container using recycled materials
- Keeping pests and diseases away from your plants—the toxin-free way
- Growing bountiful crops in pots and selecting the best heirloom varieties
- Cultivating hundreds of plants, from blueberries to Thai basil, to the best tomatoes you’ll ever taste
- Canning, and preserving to make the most of your garden’s generosity
- Green-friendly, cost-saving, growing, and building projects that are smart and stylish
- And much more!
 
Whether you’re looking to eat on a budget or simply experience the pleasure of picking tonight’s meal from right outside your door, this is the must-have book for small-space gardeners—no backyard required.
 
GAYLA TRAIL is the creator of the acclaimed top gardening website yougrowgirl.com. Her work as a writer and photographer has appeared in publications including The New York Times, Newsweek, Budget Living, and ReadyMade. A resident of Toronto who has grown a garden on her rooftop for more than 10 years, she is the author of You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Recipe from Grow Great Grub: Root Vegetable Fries

Ingredients:
1 large carrot
1 large potato
1 large sweet potato
1 large beet
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper

Roasted potatoes are good and all, but a roasted root vegetable medley is just as easy to make and a little bit fancy, too. Substitute any root vegetable, including starchy potatoes, turnip, parsnip, celery root, or rutabaga. While the veggies are roasting, toss a garlic bulb or two into the pan at about the 30-minute mark--the result: easy, creamy garlic! Yum.

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Cut the vegetables into 1/2"-wide spears and toss in a roasting pan with olive oil and herbs to coat. Keep the peels on; that’s where the vitamins are.

2. Roast for approximately 40 minutes, turning regularly until all sides have turned a golden brown and the fries are cooked straight through.

Serves 2–4

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Root Vegetable Fries
 
Roasted potatoes are good and all, but a roasted root vegetable medley is just as easy to make and a little bit fancy too. Substitute any root vegetable, including starchy potatoes, turnip, parsnip, celery root, or rutabaga. While the veggies are roasting, toss a garlic bulb or two into the pan at about the 30-minute mark—the result: easy, creamy garlic! Yum.
 
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Cut the vegetables into 1⁄2"-wide spears and toss in a roasting pan with olive oil and herbs to coat. Keep the peels on; that’s where the vitamins are.
2. Roast for approximately 40 minutes, turning regularly until all sides have turned a golden brown and the fries are cooked straight through.
 
Serves 2–4

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1 Original edition (February 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307452018
• ISBN-13: 978-0307452016
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Sustainable Living
  • #63 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Horticulture

More About the Author

Gayla Trail is a writer, photographer, and graphic designer with a background in the Fine Arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. She is the creator of the popular gardening project, YouGrowGirl.com and the author of three books on gardening: You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening, Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces, and "Easy Growing: Organic Herbs and Edible Flowers from Small Spaces as well as an in-demand gardening personality and spokesperson with a focus on urban gardening, growing food, sustainable living, and community. Her work as a writer and photographer has appeared in the New York Times; O, the Oprah Magazine; ReadyMade; Domino; Budget Living; and more.

Gayla's love for gardening began with parsley seeds planted in a Styrofoam cup when she was five years old. Inspired by the potato plants her grandmother grew in a bucket on her senior centre's fire escape, Gayla has always gardened in whatever space she had available, including a hot and exposed building rooftop, a community plot, windowsills, shared yard space, fire escapes, a concrete parking pad, stoop steps, and a small urban backyard.