I can't believe that it actually snowed the first week of December here in Texas, but that's all the proof that I need to show that it's time to spend some time indoors, possibly catching up on some reading. So, do you want to know just what "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and I like to read? We thought you'd never ask!
We absolutely love magazines -- I think I became such a big fan when my kids were little; I couldn't make it through a whole book very often, but I might at least read a whole magazine article before someone needed something. One of my favorite magazines is Organic Gardening. This is a great magazine if gardening is your main interest, and of course, the focus is on using organic methods. Some articles that you may have missed out on are: "Grow the Best Tasting Tomatoes", "Fit More Herbs in Your Garden", "A Drought Proof Garden", and "The Best Strawberries for Your Climate".
If you can't tell, my interests go beyond gardening alone -- my dream is to someday move to the country and live on between one and five acres. In addition to gardening, I would like to have some chickens running around, and maybe someday work up to having dairy goats, too. Hobby Farm Magazine appeals to this desire nicely (I originally found this magazine at Tractor Supply Company). Past issues list articles such as, "Milk Dairy Goats by Hand", "Plant Your Fall & Winter Garden Now", and "Greenhouses, Hydroponics and Cold Frames for Fall Gardening".
There is a companion magazine to Hobby Farm, and that is Hobby Farm Home (which I also found at Tractor Supply Company). Some articles that you might find here are, "Secrets to Using Unique Flours", "5 Chicken Pot Pie Recipes", "Preserve Your Barn's Character", "Easy Homemade Bread and Butter Making", and "Low-Maintenance Moss Garden".
The last time I bought magazines at TSC, I found the premiere issue of a magazine called Urban Farm. It's from the same people who bring you Hobby Farm, but the focus of this magazine is helping those of us who live on small plots in the city to find ways to live our hobby farm dream on a smaller scale. Some of the ideas that are shared here are "Turn Your Lawn into a Garden", "Container Gardening", and "Drying and Freezing Homegrown Veggies".
Mother Earth News is a magazine that I have enjoyed, for the most part. I will tell you that most of these magazines have at least a little tinge of "global warming/sustainable living" in their content (All right, already! We know!), but Mother Earth lost me a little bit when it had a couple of articles about our need to reduce our population rates. When it comes to the over-population zealots, I've always wondered which one of their kids they wished had never been born! But if you can just take it for what it's worth, this magazine has some really great "how-to" articles. Recent titles were: "5 Inexpensive DIY Greenhouses", "How to Heat with Wood", "How Much Would Solar Panels Cost You", and "Recipes for Healthy No-Knead Bread".
For those of you who are like me and not only want to live in the country, but also aspire to attaining a pretty high level of self-reliance (think individual water well and solar panels or wind generator), Back Home Magazine is great! (Also originally found at TSC!) I can't wait until the day I can have "A Compost-Heated Greenhouse", try something like "Generate Your Own Wind Power" and "Preserve the Harvest With Solar Dehydration", and enjoy "The Benefits of a Small House" and "The Struggles of Wilderness Living"!
For organic gardening in Texas, I find Howard Garrett, also known as "The Dirt Doctor", to be quite helpful. He not only has a website, but he has written several books and has a line of organic gardening products to help you try to keep your plants alive!
Now that the kids are older, I do get to read a book or two every now and then. Here are some books that I plan on wading through this winter:
All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is still a favorite; I refer to it often. The focus of this method is using a 4-foot by 4-foot square (or other variation) to get 16 square feet of growing room instead of stretching your garden out into a 16-foot row. This is geared toward helping those with limited space have a garden in spite of their limitation. He also has what is the "perfect mix" of growing medium which will help your plants grow. I will say that the plants that I had in my square foot garden survived much better than my other plants (at least so far -- I'm not giving up!).
I recently bought Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, Edited by Fern Marshall Bradley. It's a big old thing, and I'm sure there's bound to be something in there to help someone with a toxic thumb!
Another book that I look forward to really getting into is Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. This teaches a concept known as companion planting which purports that certain plants being planted with other plants can be beneficial. For example, apparently cucumbers are offensive to raccoons, so this book suggests planting them with corn. In turn, the corn seemingly protects the cucumber against the virus that causes wilt. I'm going to try some of this stuff next year!
Month-By-Month Gardening in Texas by Dan Gill and Dale Groom is a book that you can actually read month-by-month! This is just what someone like me needs!
Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and Compost Gardening by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin will help you get the most out of all of that compost that you've been cooking up! Actually, Barbara and Deborah have the most wonderful website that I discovered while writing this post! I guess there's even more reading for us now!
I found The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader while I was knocking around TSC this summer. It's a great guide for helping you preserve that big harvest that some of you actually have. It has a guide that lists the best method of storage, as well as when to harvest each fruit/vegetable and what to look for. Great!
This last book is not a gardening book, but if you are into food storage, it is great, too! This concept has been around for awhile, but this new addition caught my attention and made me want to kick myself for not trying this earlier. Make-A-Mix by Karine Eliason and friends is not only good for the person who wants to use all of that flour, sugar, and dry milk that they are storing; it is also a good book for the working woman who wants to make "home-made" meals for her family, but may not have the time. The concept is simple: in the front of the book are a few basic "mix" recipes that you make up ahead of time and store in a large, air-tight container. For example, the "Hot Roll Mix" calls for flour, sugar, salt, and dry milk (this makes a large batch of dry ingredient). Using this one mix, plus whatever ingredients the individual recipes in the back of the book call for, you can make Swedish Cinnamon Twists, French Bread, Crescent Rolls, Big Soft Pretzels, Hamburger Buns, Pizza Crust, and several other things. There is also "Muffin Mix", "Quick Mix", "All Purpose Cake Mix", and make-ahead dry mixes.
Well, I guess that's enough for now -- that should keep "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and everyone busy for awhile. Happy reading!
We absolutely love magazines -- I think I became such a big fan when my kids were little; I couldn't make it through a whole book very often, but I might at least read a whole magazine article before someone needed something. One of my favorite magazines is Organic Gardening. This is a great magazine if gardening is your main interest, and of course, the focus is on using organic methods. Some articles that you may have missed out on are: "Grow the Best Tasting Tomatoes", "Fit More Herbs in Your Garden", "A Drought Proof Garden", and "The Best Strawberries for Your Climate".
If you can't tell, my interests go beyond gardening alone -- my dream is to someday move to the country and live on between one and five acres. In addition to gardening, I would like to have some chickens running around, and maybe someday work up to having dairy goats, too. Hobby Farm Magazine appeals to this desire nicely (I originally found this magazine at Tractor Supply Company). Past issues list articles such as, "Milk Dairy Goats by Hand", "Plant Your Fall & Winter Garden Now", and "Greenhouses, Hydroponics and Cold Frames for Fall Gardening".
There is a companion magazine to Hobby Farm, and that is Hobby Farm Home (which I also found at Tractor Supply Company). Some articles that you might find here are, "Secrets to Using Unique Flours", "5 Chicken Pot Pie Recipes", "Preserve Your Barn's Character", "Easy Homemade Bread and Butter Making", and "Low-Maintenance Moss Garden".
The last time I bought magazines at TSC, I found the premiere issue of a magazine called Urban Farm. It's from the same people who bring you Hobby Farm, but the focus of this magazine is helping those of us who live on small plots in the city to find ways to live our hobby farm dream on a smaller scale. Some of the ideas that are shared here are "Turn Your Lawn into a Garden", "Container Gardening", and "Drying and Freezing Homegrown Veggies".
Mother Earth News is a magazine that I have enjoyed, for the most part. I will tell you that most of these magazines have at least a little tinge of "global warming/sustainable living" in their content (All right, already! We know!), but Mother Earth lost me a little bit when it had a couple of articles about our need to reduce our population rates. When it comes to the over-population zealots, I've always wondered which one of their kids they wished had never been born! But if you can just take it for what it's worth, this magazine has some really great "how-to" articles. Recent titles were: "5 Inexpensive DIY Greenhouses", "How to Heat with Wood", "How Much Would Solar Panels Cost You", and "Recipes for Healthy No-Knead Bread".
For those of you who are like me and not only want to live in the country, but also aspire to attaining a pretty high level of self-reliance (think individual water well and solar panels or wind generator), Back Home Magazine is great! (Also originally found at TSC!) I can't wait until the day I can have "A Compost-Heated Greenhouse", try something like "Generate Your Own Wind Power" and "Preserve the Harvest With Solar Dehydration", and enjoy "The Benefits of a Small House" and "The Struggles of Wilderness Living"!
For organic gardening in Texas, I find Howard Garrett, also known as "The Dirt Doctor", to be quite helpful. He not only has a website, but he has written several books and has a line of organic gardening products to help you try to keep your plants alive!
Now that the kids are older, I do get to read a book or two every now and then. Here are some books that I plan on wading through this winter:
All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is still a favorite; I refer to it often. The focus of this method is using a 4-foot by 4-foot square (or other variation) to get 16 square feet of growing room instead of stretching your garden out into a 16-foot row. This is geared toward helping those with limited space have a garden in spite of their limitation. He also has what is the "perfect mix" of growing medium which will help your plants grow. I will say that the plants that I had in my square foot garden survived much better than my other plants (at least so far -- I'm not giving up!).
I recently bought Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, Edited by Fern Marshall Bradley. It's a big old thing, and I'm sure there's bound to be something in there to help someone with a toxic thumb!
Another book that I look forward to really getting into is Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte. This teaches a concept known as companion planting which purports that certain plants being planted with other plants can be beneficial. For example, apparently cucumbers are offensive to raccoons, so this book suggests planting them with corn. In turn, the corn seemingly protects the cucumber against the virus that causes wilt. I'm going to try some of this stuff next year!
Month-By-Month Gardening in Texas by Dan Gill and Dale Groom is a book that you can actually read month-by-month! This is just what someone like me needs!
Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and Compost Gardening by Barbara Pleasant and Deborah L. Martin will help you get the most out of all of that compost that you've been cooking up! Actually, Barbara and Deborah have the most wonderful website that I discovered while writing this post! I guess there's even more reading for us now!
I found The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol W. Costenbader while I was knocking around TSC this summer. It's a great guide for helping you preserve that big harvest that some of you actually have. It has a guide that lists the best method of storage, as well as when to harvest each fruit/vegetable and what to look for. Great!
This last book is not a gardening book, but if you are into food storage, it is great, too! This concept has been around for awhile, but this new addition caught my attention and made me want to kick myself for not trying this earlier. Make-A-Mix by Karine Eliason and friends is not only good for the person who wants to use all of that flour, sugar, and dry milk that they are storing; it is also a good book for the working woman who wants to make "home-made" meals for her family, but may not have the time. The concept is simple: in the front of the book are a few basic "mix" recipes that you make up ahead of time and store in a large, air-tight container. For example, the "Hot Roll Mix" calls for flour, sugar, salt, and dry milk (this makes a large batch of dry ingredient). Using this one mix, plus whatever ingredients the individual recipes in the back of the book call for, you can make Swedish Cinnamon Twists, French Bread, Crescent Rolls, Big Soft Pretzels, Hamburger Buns, Pizza Crust, and several other things. There is also "Muffin Mix", "Quick Mix", "All Purpose Cake Mix", and make-ahead dry mixes.
Well, I guess that's enough for now -- that should keep "Gan"-"Green Thumb" and everyone busy for awhile. Happy reading!
