You Grow Girl [Paperback]

Gayla Trail (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 2, 2005

This is not your grandmother's gardening book. You Grow Girl is a hip, humorous how-to for crafty gals everywhere who are discovering a passion for gardening but lack the know-how to turn their dreams of homegrown tomatoes and fresh-cut flowers into a reality.

Gayla Trail, creator of YouGrowGirl.com, provides guidance for both beginning and intermediate gardeners with engaging tips, projects, and recipes -- whether you have access to a small backyard or merely to a fire escape. You Grow Girl eliminates the intimidation factor and reveals how easy and enjoyable it can be to cultivate plants and flowers even when resources and space are limited. Divided into accessible sections like Plan, Plant, and Grow, You Grow Girl takes readers through the entire gardening experience:

• Preparing soil

• Nurturing seedlings

• Fending off critters

• Reaping the bounty

• Readying plants for winter

• Preparing for the seasons ahead

Gayla also includes a wealth of ingenious and creative projects, such as:

• Transforming your garden's harvest into lush bath and beauty products

• Converting household junk into canny containers

• Growing and bagging herbal tea

• Concocting homemade pest repellents

...and much, much more.

Witty, wise, and as practical as it is stylish, You Grow Girl is guaranteed to show you how to get your garden on. All you need is a windowsill and a dream!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While this book's subtitle may be an overstatement-despite the quirky illustrations and chatty style, there isn't much "groundbreaking" advice here-the book itself is a competent guide to getting a little dirt under your fingernails. Trail, a graphic designer, writer, gardener and creator of www.YouGrowGirl.com, believes gardening, like knitting and crocheting, has become cool again. Her advice to young women who want to take up the hobby is "follow your heart." Gardening doesn't have to be intimidating, she says, and her book certainly proves that. In instructional subdivisions such as "Mulch, Love It or Leave It" and "Not Your Grandmother's Gardening Apron," she coaches readers on basic aspects of gardening, keeping her tone light and her advice simple. Chapters detail planting, growing, collecting bounty (like herbs, fruits and vegetables) and preparing a garden for winter. Each project-from assembling devices to keep pests away to instructions for growing potted tomatoes-is marked to show its difficulty level, and Trail is equally attuned to the needs of both city dwellers and those with more space to develop their green thumb. 100 color photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Gayla Trail created her acclaimed gardening website,YouGrowGirl.com, in 2000. A graphic designer, writer, photographer, and gardener, she has contributed to BUST and ReadyMade magazines as a gardening guru. She lives in Toronto.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (March 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743270142
• ISBN-13: 978-0743270144
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Flowers
  • #28 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Vegetables
  • #59 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Technique

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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for the new gardener March 7, 2005

By mom22cherubs

Format:Paperback

This book is fantastic. I have been gardening for 8 years and I wish I had had this book when I started. Even though it's target audience is the young city dweller. I, a suburban housewife and mother of two, find it more useful than all my other gardening books (I love Martha, but I just don't have that kind of time or money!).

All the basics are here, distilled into an easy to read format that is fun to read and ispiring. In addition, the book has lots of fun projects that are affordable and easy.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very inspiring - a great primer for organic and urban gardening! January 14, 2007

By Stephanie Lamphere

Format:Paperback

Great book about gardening, particularly urban and organic gardening. The author's passion for gardening just exudes from this book and inspires me to grow things and get my hands dirty! It provides a very good lesson on what can and should be done; however, it doesn't go into a great deal of specifics (but how can it, since it covers so much ground!)... you will need to do more homework to do what you are inspired by this book to do. Fortunately there is a great list of resources in the back. You Grow Girl also contains a lot of garden-related projects (like making a gardening tool belt (apron), making seed packets, and making herbal bath & body products. Highly recommended reading, especially right before spring! YOU GROW GIRL! (For additional resources, and to get a feel for how material is presented, visit the website! yougrowgirl.com!)

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brings the fun into gardening.... April 29, 2005

By C. Tucker

Format:Paperback

I ran across [...] and found this book. It's given me a completely different perspective on gardening....from clueless to hopeful. After reading this book I feel I have the confidence to grow things that don't die after the first week. The book was very easy to read, very colourful and interesting. I highly recommend it to someone who is even just slightly interested in plants.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous! October 22, 2005

By Mark Twain

Format:Paperback

Although I question the subtitle (not much groundbreaking info here!), I love this book. I have a number of fat, wordy gardening tomes, but this provides the most essential, critical info in a short, simple format. Great job!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful for very new gardeners April 2, 2012

By Laura McDonough

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I can see how this book would be useful for someone just starting out, or who has maybe grown a few flowers in pots/containers, but never jumped into something more serious. I am on my 2nd vegetable garden (started last year) and I am clearly well beyond what is offered in this book.

I was hoping to get more info on growing vegetables & herbs --more details on best ways to plant, feed, water, and when to harvest. I got almost nothing out of the book for these topics.

It's a fine book if you are really starting out and unsure of yourself, but not if you understand how to start things up already. I'm just tired of searching on the interest every time I have a question, given the quality of advice out there is really hit or miss. Guess I'm going to keep searching.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!! March 16, 2005

By Miriam Rouziek

Format:Paperback

This book is absolutely fantastic. It's really filled in all the information that my mom's gardening books left out. This book is chock full of great information on plant types, garden pests, fertilizing, and how to make your own fertilizers and pest repellants. There are even great craft projects so you can make your own garden apron and seed packets. Best of all, the author's website [...] has more information for when you're ready to take it to the next level, or if you just need some extra help.

This has been a great addition to my gardening books!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars beginners delight August 29, 2005

By Sassy

Format:Paperback

I purchased 2 of these books. One was for myself, I'm in my second year with a garden, and my friend who is interested in gardening, but didn't know where to start. It's easy to read and understand. The great pictures and quirky approach make is all seem like such a fun hobby. We were especially interested in organic gardening and the book made so many thing so much clearer for me. It was very realistic, since most of the other gardening books I have overwhelm me. This book is so easy to find things in, I use it as a reference tool and have tabbed a few pages so I can refer back to them over and over. The book is young and fun. I highly recommend it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty great and helpful February 26, 2010

By C. McPherrin

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I only gave it four stars because it is mainly geared towards people living in the city without any yard. I have a small yard and could use some more advice on how to utilize it properly. However, the book is fantastic in it's detailing of how to do it all: make compost, fix your soil, pick your plants, plant your plants...Very helpful and informative to the new gardener. I just hope I can pull it all together and make it work.