Sugar Snaps and Strawberries: Simple Solutions for Creating Your Own Small-Space Edible Garden [Paperback]

Andrea Bellamy (Author), Jackie Connelly (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2011

Imagine savoring fresh-picked strawberries on a weekend morning, plucking plump figs from your mini-orchard to quarter and serve at a farm-to-table meal with friends, or harvesting and sautéing the edible stalks of garlic bulbs. If the size of your space is bringing you back to reality, here’s the best part: you don’t need a big backyard to grow your own food. In fact, you don’t need a yard at all.

Andrea Bellamy, founder of the acclaimed blog Heavy Petal (HeavyPetal.ca), gives you the dirt on growing gorgeous organic food with very little square footage. Simple, straightforward, design and growing advice can help you transform just a snippet of space into a stylish and edible oasis. Bellamy goes beyond the surface and shows you how to create and maintain healthy soil, decide what and when to plant, sow seeds and harvest, and most importantly, enjoy the process. So go ahead, picture that tiny nook, corner, strip, porch, alley, balcony, or postage-stamp-sized yard overflowing with fingerling potatoes, fragrant herbs, sugar snap peas, French breakfast radishes, and scarlet runner beans.

Armed with luscious photography, encouraging tips, and sophisticated designs, you’re sure to be inspired to join the grow-your-own revolution.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

A movement to embrace home-grown edibles, whether propelled by economics or the hope for sustainability, is taking shape around us, writes Bellamy, setting the stage for a thorough introduction to the basics of creating a small-space garden, in which beauty combines with functionality. Bellamy offers design tips as she discusses assessing space and common site problems (e.g., poor drainage); preparing containers, raised beds, and soil; sowing; growing; maintaining plant health; pruning; and harvesting. Highlighted are edibles from apples to zucchini, with details for the cultivation and enjoyment of each fruit and vegetable, including useful growing tips and information on the most popular varieties. Of particular inspiration are Bellamy’s suggestions for veggie patches on balconies, patios, and the tiniest of city plots. Many full-page color photographs by Jackie Connelly complete this yummy and useful presentation. --Whitney Scott

Review

"A stylish yet substantial introduction to growing edibles in small spaces."

(Portland Monthly )

“An inspiring book for those with a can-do spirit but not much gardening space.” (Life on the Balcony blog )

“A great book for beginners and for those of us who need winter eye candy.” (Red Dirt Ramblings )

“Inspiration…for veggie patches on balconies, patios, and the tiniest of city plots…complete this yummy and useful presentation.” (Booklist )

“Full of smart ideas for how to deal with a seemingly impossible growing situation.”

(ReadyMade )

“A marvelous book that's entertaining, extremely useful, and lovely. I recommend it highly.” 

(Garden Rant )

“An invaluable resource for aspiring greenthumbed terrace farmers.”

(The Source Weekly )

“I’d recommend it to any new gardener of edibles, particularly one who has limited or no access to a plot of earth she can call her own.” (Digging blog )

“Full of wisdom and practical advice…stands apart for its tone, which is both gentle and practical, and its many fascinating sidebars and offshoots. Easy to flip through and find something fun to read in a hurry.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel )

“Particularly useful to those urban/suburban homes with very limited space.” (Sustainable Horticulture )

“A fine piece of informational, inspiring and winning work.” (Horticulture )

"Creative and fresh." (Library Journal )

Beautiful, down-to-earth, completely enticing. (ReadyMade )

A nice book for a new gardener or an old one - to sift thorough as we wait for the gardening season. (Skippy's Vegetable Garden )

Bright, cheerful, and motivating…you will wonder why anyone would ever hesitate to grow a few edibles even if they have only a fire escape or deck. (CommonWeeder.com )

Whether you've got a porch or just a windowsill, Heavy Petal blogger Andrea Bellamy has you covered—her Sugar Snaps and Strawberries is an accessible, comprehensive guide to small-space gardening. (Portland Mercury )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Timber Press (January 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1604691247
• ISBN-13: 978-1604691245
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 0.7 x 10.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,021 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Technique > Urban

More About the Author

Andrea Bellamy is the creator of Heavy Petal (heavypetal.ca), a blog devoted to urban organic gardening. She has a certificate in garden design from the University of British Columbia and studied permaculture methods for food production at an urban micro-farm. She has been gardening since childhood and has grown food on rooftops, balconies, boulevards, and patios, and in community garden beds, window boxes, traffic circles, and front and backyards.

She combined her love of writing and gardening when she began writing features for home and garden publications. After a stint as assistant editor at a Vancouver-based gardening magazine, she launched Heavy Petal to answer the need for a gardening blog that spoke to a new generation of gardeners. The site has been featured in Canadian Gardening and Sunset magazines and has been noted by online tastemakers Apartment Therapy, Treehugger, Design*Sponge, and Decor8.

Andrea is involved in community garden advocacy and community-based food security. On her own small third-floor balcony, she grows a wide range of edibles including tomatoes, potatoes, shiitake mushrooms, and saffron crocuses. She is an active guerrilla gardener and a proud steward of a plot in her local community garden. She lives in Vancouver, Canada, with her husband and daughter.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book for People Who Want a Vegetable Garden That is as Pretty as it is Productive! December 20, 2010

By Fern Richardson

Format:Paperback

I am so excited to review and highly recommend blogger Andrea Bellamy's debut book: Sugar Snaps and Strawberries. Andrea-who can be found at one of my favorite gardening blogs, HeavyPetal.ca-wrote an inspiring book for those with a can-do spirit but not much gardening space.

One of my favorite parts of garden books are the pictures, and Sugar Snaps and Strawberries does not disappoint! The photos are beautiful, and inspiring, but they're also real, and attainable. You look at them and think "I can do this!" Another visually appealing aspect of this book is the overall design, it looks like a crafty person's scrapbook and makes the book feel very approachable.

The next thing on my list of requirements for a gardening book is actionable information that I can implement right away. Even though I've been gardening in one form or another for close to twenty years, I felt refreshed and re-inspired by Andrea's advice. I really appreciated the sidebars sprinkled throughout the book with quick "hey, try this" sort of tips. For example, on page 19, Andrea made a list of easy-to-digest info on making an edible garden beautiful, with ideas like "Aim for a variety of leaf shapes in your planting. Contrast crinkly leafed chard with fern like carrots and large leafed squashes with tall, slim straps of leeks."

Andrea really does a great job of holding your hand as you create your vegetable garden, but respects you enough to point you towards a vegetable garden that is just as pretty as any flower bed. Someone who has never gardened before can pick this book up, follow Andrea's advice, and be very successful. And those of us who have grown a tomato or two in our lives will find plenty of great ideas and advice to keep us flipping to the next page.

If you're looking for a last minute gift for the gardener on your list, Sugar Snaps and Strawberries by Andrea Bellamy is definitely it!

p.s. One of the photos in the book depicts a canoe completely packed to the brim with a gorgeous vegetable garden. You really can garden anywhere!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I Carry it with me for Reference March 15, 2011

By Terry Quast

Format:Paperback

As a new but aspiring gardener this book was by far the best tool I could have dreamed of. Although I got my copy from my local book store I was pleased by the amount of information on combining plants for optimal space, the suggestions and tips for deck gardening. There are fantastic photos, step by step instructions on things from mulching, to composing, to building a raised bed, and saving seeds at the end of the year. If you are looking for a great book on starting your first garden this is the book for you!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best looking, easiest to read garden book I've found May 2, 2011

By Andrea

Format:Paperback

Fantastic gardening book from the beautiful, bright, colorful photos to the easy to read text. A great read in itself, regardless of your current gardening style you will learn something from this book. I always gardened with my parents and have had my own garden for about 3 years and I definitely learned quite a bit. I highly recommend this book for beginner to intermediate gardeners, the info is complete and an easy to read. It's as if your next door neighbor or best friend was explaining gardening to you, in plain English and answering all your questions before you even have to ask. My favorite part was in the back where she lists all the common garden edibles and a thorough review of how, when, where to plant them, including notes on "companion planting" and specific varieties she recommends. Loved this book, learned a lot. The gorgeous photos are so inspiring. I have already implemented many of the new techniques she mentioned with great success. Two green thumbs up :)